Friday, April 26, 2024
Many acquisitions and mergers have boosted PharmEasy into the Unicorn Club. But will PharmEasy’s survive amidst competition from Reliance Retail’s Netmeds and Tata Group’s 1mg?
In April, PharmEasy entered India’s Unicorn Club making it the first ePharmacy to gain a spot between giants like Byjus, Zomato, and Ola. PharmEasy came into existence in 2014, when Dharmil Sheth of IMT Ghaziabad and his doctor friend Dhawal Shah dreamed of tackling healthcare’s biggest struggle - Affordability and Accessibility. They aimed to create a platform that helps connect patients and pharmacy stores. PharmEasy would bridge the gap and deliver medicines and other health equipment directly at the patient's doorstep.
In its first funding held in March 2016, PharmEasy has managed to raise $5 million from Bessemer Venture Partners. In its last funding, the company received $20 million from B Capital. In total PharmEasy managed to gain a total of $671.5 million in all its funding. It also managed to double its revenue from ₹354 crores in FY19 to ₹637 in FY20. PharmEasy’s current valuation is $1.8 billion. After the approval of the merger of PharmEasy with Medlife by the Competition Commission of India, it became the First Major Consolidation in the eHealthcare sector.
The company covers 98% of all pin codes available in India. It also provides tremendous discounts to its users, thus effectively providing a solution to healthcare’s challenge of Access and Affordability. For its B2B distribution business, PharmEasy has 4500 distributors and 1,00,000 retailers. Banking on the success of the diagnostic business, 20 times surge within 18 months, PharmEasy now looks to dip its hand in these diagnostic centres. In June, PharmEasy’s parent company API Holdings took the reins of Thyrocare Technologies.
The deal was cemented between Thyrocare and Doon Technologies (a subsidiary of API Holdings). Thyrocare acquired a 5% stake in API Holdings at a value of ₹30,000 crores. Whereas API Holdings gains a 66.1% stake in Thyrocare for ₹4546 crores. It is intriguing to note that PharmEasy, a seven-year-old company, was able to acquire Thyrocare, a player that has been in the market for over 25 years.
After the acquisition of Medlife and Thyrocare, PharmEasy remains amongst the top three diagnostic players in the country. There is no doubt severe competition awaits from other big players like Reliance Retail’s Netmeds and Tata Group’s 1mg.
