- Medlife was founded by Tushar Kumar and Prashant Singh in 2014. The Bengaluru based startup deals in medicines online along with facilitating diagnostic tests and doctor consultation.
- Narayanan has joined as the company’s CEO and co-founder and will be involved with comapnies daily operations apart from looking over mergers and acquisitions and handling fundraising.
Ananth Narayanan who recently quit as the CEO of Walmart-owned Myntra six months back is back in CEO’s shoes with e-pharmacy platform Medlife, said the company on Monday. Narayanan has joined as the company’s CEO and co-founder and will be involved with comapnies daily operations apart from looking over mergers and acquisitions and handling fundraising.
This news is coming out in a time when the company is looking at a possible investment of around $150 million from multiple financial and strategic investors. Narayanan’s entry into Medlife also comes with an investment into the company of an undisclosed amount.
An alumnus of University of Madras & University of Michigan, Narayana has vast experience and knowledge from years in consultancy and managing operations to mentor start-ups. With his financial acumen and marketing insights, he has helped startups create systems and processes, build stakeholder communities, effectively reach out to markets and scale up their business.
He was in Mckinsey & company for 15 good years in different leadership positions across different geographies. After Jabong’s acquisition by Myntra, he was leading the combined entity.
Narayanan has also invested in startups in his personal capacity with investments in Curefit, scooter rental startup Vogo, education platform Unacademy, among others.
“This (Medlife) felt to me like Myntra at very early stages – with a $100 billion market (opportunity) and two percent penetration,” said Narayanan, chief executive of Medlife. “Moreover technology innovation in health is at its infancy and can be used for seamless e-consultation to medicine delivery to diagnostics.”
Recently, Medlife acquired Bengaluru-based medicine-delivery startup Myra in an all-stock deal, indicating early signs of consolidation in India’s crowded e-pharmacy sector.
Medlife was founded by Tushar Kumar and Prashant Singh in 2014. The Bengaluru based startup deals in medicines online along with facilitating diagnostic tests and doctor consultation.
Medlife said its sales grew to nearly $700 crore in the financial year 2019. The e-pharmacy is looking at the target of Rs. 1,400-1,500 crore. The company raised 298 crore at a valuation of Rs. 2,788 crore from the family trust of Tushar Kumar whose father is the co-founder of Mumbai based Pharmatecuial Company Alkem.
