Meesho, Cred, and Pharmeasy. Do you know the similarity among them? No, need to guess more. They are the three Indian Startups that got Unicorn status in the last three consecutive days. Meesho, social e-commerce platform, got Unicorn status on Monday, whereas Cred achieved unicorn status yesterday.
Today, PharmEasy has raised $350 million to become the new member of the unicorn club. The current funding round has helped PharmEasy to reach a valuation of $1.5 billion. API holdings, the parent company of PharmEasy, has raised the funds from Prosus Ventures, and TPG Growth. PharmEasy was founded in 2014 and has acquired Medlife recently.
How PharmEasy will Utilize the Funds?
April month has brought new excitement for the Indian Startup Ecosystem. Three days, three new unicorns. It is a hat trick. Four more days to go. Can we expect some more unicorns in the exciting week? PharmEasy has raised $350 million in the latest funding round to reach a billion-dollar valuation.
New investors Prosus Ventures and TPG Growth led the recent funding round, whereas its existing investors Temasek, CDPQ, LGT Lightrock, Eight Roads and Think Investments, too, contributed to the funding raise event. There is a possibility of secondary transactions related to concluded funding round, as reported by Economic Times.
Talking about the latest achievements of PharmEasy, Siddharth Shah, chief executive officer of API Holdings, said:
“I am particularly proud that we have been able to not only provide consumers with much faster and easier access to the healthcare products and services they need, but that we have been able to do so by empowering and digitising 60,000 small pharmacy stores that provide such an essential service to the Indian public.”
With the latest funding, Company plans to digitise 100000+ pharmacies in the coming 12 months
Online Pharmacy Future and API CEO Statement
Online pharmacy is in news due to the involvement of big giants in the online pharma business. Mukesh Ambani has recently acquired NetMeds, whereas Amazon has started its venture in the pharmacy area. Tata group is in the advanced talks to acquire 1mg.
PharmEasy is also on an acquisition spree. It has acquired Medlife last month. Medlife CEO revealed this news on the LinkedIn platform.
Ananth Narayanan, the chief executive of Medlife, said:
“Late 2020, Prashant and I decided to merge Medlife with API which would help create the largest e-health player in the market. The API team has a terrific track record of growth, with a great list of investors and terrific founders. The overlap in customers was low. Joining hands could lead to a lot more capital coming into the market leader who could then help build out the industry.”
Another unicorn Cred, a credit card management platform, has announced on Tuesday that it has raised $215 million in a Series D funding round to make a market valuation of $2.2 billion.
Surprisingly, in Cred financial round also, new investors Falcon Edge led the round and existing investor Coatue Management led this round, while Insight Partners joined the CRED cap table. Existing investors DST Global, RTP Global, Tiger Global, Greenoaks Capital, Dragoneer Investment Group, and Sofina have also participated in this round.
