In India, there are only 1.6 million pharmacies. That is for every 1800 Indians there’s only 1 pharmacy available. In 2014, Shreyans Mehta’s father, a rural practising doctor, experienced slip disc and found himself unable to move for consultation. This incident prompted Mehta and his friends Nikhil Baheti and Saida Dhanavath to start MedCord’s product Sehat Sathi. They started out of Kota, Rajasthan in 2017 but were their tech centre was based out of Hyderabad.

Some of their learnings from the field were that 80% of the villagers had to take a 60 KM long journey to get even 1 consultation. Their healthcare expense was 63.5% out of pocket. They also discovered that healthcare facilities are limited in the rural areas and many relied on local pharmacies or ‘aadha doctor’ for their consultation. This gave them the idea to transform the local pharmacies themselves. 

They decided to transform and digitise these pharmacies into e-clinics. The stores can transform into e-clinics that have doctor’s e-consultation without any extra cost. Sehat Sathi also helps these pharmacies stock up their medicines and even get loans for expansion. They also help bring big brands like Himalaya, Beardo and Oziva to penetrate the rural areas. 

In FY22, they clocked revenue of approximately Rs 1 crore. Sehat Sathi has raised undisclosed funds from Infoedge, Waterbridge, Astarc, RVCF, Village Global, Earls-filed and Anand Chandrasekaran. They have partnered with Fortis to help their supply chain and even partnered with the Government of Rajasthan during the tough times of the pandemic. 

The EY report claims that the Indian ePharmacy market was estimated at $0.5 billion in 2019 and will reach $4.5 billion in 2025 due to its CAGR increasing by 44%. By the end of 2021, they planned to have digitized 50 thousand pharmacies and serve around 80 crore Indians through its unique model. By the end of 2022, they plan to have more than 5 million users and digitise more than half a million medical stores. 

India may have 1 doctor for every 11,000 patients but with Sehat Sathi it could have 1 ePharmacy per 1800 patients.