Saturday, December 28

Online Pharmacy ‘PharmEasy’ Eyeing To Raise About $50 Million

Online medicine marketplace, PharmEasy is eyeing to carry forward a $40-50 million funding round led by Fundamentum Advisors (owned by Nandan Nilekani and Sanjeev Aggarwal) and Eight Roads Ventures (the proprietary investment arm of Fidelity International).

This particular funding round is expected to close over the next two weeks, and will possibly witness participation of the existing investors as well including Orios Venture Partners, Astarc Ventures, JM Financial and Manipal Education and Medical Group (MEMG).

“The company is doing well. It is among the top companies in the ePharmacy space. It has a play in both in retail and wholesale. Their average order value is around Rs 1,000. The company is looking to use the money to fuel its expansion and also to finance cash burn in this competitive market. The deal might be announced sometime early next month,” said one of the sources.

The funds so raised are anticipated to utilized in the growth and further building the company’s technology platform. According to the sources, after the completion of this funding round, PharmEasy’s market valuation will reach $130 million.

The new funding round comes closely after the medical company raised $30 million in a series-C round led by Bessemer Venture Partners in February this year. It had also secured $17 million in the last year. PharmEasy fights a tough competition with players like 1mg, Netmeds among others.

“We have been talking to a lot of investors to raise money. But nothing concrete yet,” said Dharmil Sheth, CEO of PharmEasy. “The next one year is going to be more of building the category and acquiring more customers from across every geography in India. We are looking to grow at least five times considering the space is still very nascent.”

The company at present serves around 20,000 areas in the country, with rapid and powerful operations in Mumbai, Delhi, Ahmedabad, Bengaluru and Kolkata. PharmEasy receives around 8,000 orders per day.