Company Profile is an initiative by StartupTalky to publish verified information on different startups and organizations. The content in this post has been approved by PharmEasy.
The medicine industry has always been as disorganized as we can imagine. Though we were all pleasantly happy with the wholesale and retail market structure that the pharmaceutical industry has offered its customers, the digitalization of the same was evident. Thus, it happened.
With the digitalization of the medicine industry, we can now order our medicines from a wide range of ecommerce medical stores online and get them delivered online without any hassles. One of the major players that makes online ordering of medicines easy is PharmEasy.
PharmEasy has developed a healthcare delivery platform to simplify and modernize the health care setup in India. The platform helps patients to stay connected with various local pharmacy stores and outlets. Data and technology are the driving factors behind a robust health and well-being ecosystem today and PharmEasy is leveraging both of them to strengthen healthcare in India.
If you are wondering "what does PharmEasy do?" then PharmEasy serves as an online pharmacy and handles the hassle-free delivery of medicines and other medical equipment. PharmEasy operates in several major cities of India. Shopping for medicines online has thus, become convenient and easy through PharmEasy. The company delivers medicine and other medical equipment to thousands of customers every day. Read on to find out more about PharmEasy's success story, founder, business model, growth, competitors, revenue model, funding details, and acquisitions.
PharmEasy - Company Highlights
| Startup Name | PharmEasy |
|---|---|
| Headquarters | Lal Bahadur Shastri Marg, Mumbai, India |
| Founder/Owner | Dharmil Sheth, Dr. Dhaval Shah |
| Founded | 2014 |
| Revenue/Turnover | $315.99 million (Rs 2360 crore) in FY21 |
| Net Worth/Valuation | $5.4 Billion (February 2022) |
| Total Funding | $1.60 billion (February 2022) |
| Parent Organization | 91streets Media Technologies/API Holdings Private Limited |
| Website | pharmeasy.in |
PharmEasy - Latest News
PharmEasy - About And How It Works?
PharmEasy - Industry
PharmEasy - Founders and Team
CCI Approves PharmEasy’s Merger With Medlife
PharmEasy - Startup Story
PharmEasy - Name, Tagline and Logo
PharmEasy - Business Model
PharmEasy - Revenue Model
PharmEasy - Funding
PharmEasy - Acquisitions
PharmEasy - Challenges Faced
PharmEasy - Customer Acquisition
PharmEasy - Competitors
PharmEasy - Growth and Revenue
PharmEasy - Future Plans
PharmEasy - Latest News
November 26, 2021 - PharmEasy parent, API Holdings sees its unlisted shares drop 15% of its prices within a week.
November 10, 2021 - PharmEasy files its draft red herring prospectus (DRHP) with SEBI to raise up to INR 6,250 Cr through a fresh issue of shares.
October 5, 2021 - PharmEasy is looking to raise around $300 mn in a Pre-IPO round holding the hands of new investors that the company will likely rope in!
June 25, 2021 - The parent company of PharmEasy, API Holdings has disclosed the signing of documents to buy a 66.1 % stake in Thyrocare, worth Rs 4546 crores
June 17, 2021 - B Capital buys a minority stake of PharmEasy for $20 million and is now valued at $1.8 billion, which was a considerably fast raise from $1.5 billion in April.
April 25, 2021 - PharmEasy launches its COVID-19 vaccination drive, which is allegedly the country's biggest vaccination drives that is eyeing to vaccinate over 3 crore people across the country.
PharmEasy - About And How It Works?
Pharmacy is an e-commerce platform for the purchase of medicines and other healthcare-related equipment. Whenever one uploads a prescription on PharmEasy, it is then sent to a drugstore in their vicinity. The company uses a mobile app and web technology to offer the best quality healthcare products and essentials to its customers at affordable rates.
You might be thinking, "Ah! discounted products, they would be of cheap quality for sure." But no, a discount has nothing to do with compromise in terms of quality. The pharmacy provides top-notch products at par with the quality that you can find in reputed pharmacies and medical stores.
Once PharmEasy sends your medical prescription to the drugstore, a delivery agent collects the medicines from the drugstore while adhering to all sorts of precautions and guidelines. Your order is then packaged and eventually delivered to your doorstep.
PharmEasy - Industry
Along with all the industries of now, the medicine industry has also been witnessing decent growth empowered by the penetration of the new-age technologies and the internet. The internet users have already grown at a CAGR of 18.17% between 2015 and 2019 and are further expected to rise at a CAGR of 8.78% in 2020-25. Besides, the e-commerce transactions also increased by 71.3% between April and September 2020.
The market of the Indian e-pharmacies is predicted by a leading consulting firm to grow greater than 7X times between 2019 and 2023 and is expected to rise to US$ 2.7 billion (Rs. ~199 billion) by 2023, which was recorded at US$ 360 million (Rs. 26.5 billion), at a CAGR of 65.5%, which is fascinating, to say the least.
PharmEasy - Founders and Team
Dharmil Sheth and Dr. Dhaval Shah are the founders of PharmEasy.
Dhaval Shah and Saumil Parekh are the two key executives at the company. The team behind PharmEasy has set its sight on becoming India's best healthcare delivery venture. The focus at the moment is digitization to the maximum possible extent. PharmEasy is a private company that is adding new employees to its task force every other day.
Dharmil Sheth
Dharmil is the Co-founder of PharmEasy along with being the Co-founder of API Holdings. He is also the Founder-President of Ekagrata. Sheth has also founded 91streets prior to founding PharmEasy. Dharmil is an Electronics Engineer with a Btech degree, after which he obtained an MBA in Marketing from IIM Ghaziabad. Techno Gravity Solutions and MakeMyTrip.com were the first of the companies that Dharmil Sheth worked with in the Business Development and as a Summer Internet respectively.
Dr. Dhaval Shah
Dr. Dhaval Shah is an MBBS from Rajiv Gandhi Government Medical College, after which he pursued an MBA from XLRI Jamshedpur. Shah has been the General Secretary at both of his colleges. He eventually became a Consultant at McKinsey & Company and then founded PharmEasy and API Holdings.
CCI Approves PharmEasy’s Merger With Medlife
On September 22, 2020, The Competition Commission of India approved the merger of Medlife (Online Pharmacy) with PharmEasy. This action is termed as the First Major Consolidation in this sector after the entry of Amazon and Reliance.
According to this deal, PharmEasy's Parent Entity will acquire 100% equity of Medlife and the promoters of Medlife will get a 19.95% stake in the entity
PharmEasy - Startup Story
Dharmil Sheth, the founder of PharmEasy, and his doctor pal, Dr. Dhaval Shah came up with the idea of building an online pharmacy. Both of them agreed on the potential of technology in the healthcare sector and it is this idea that primarily gave rise to PharmEasy in 2014. Presently, the company extends its supplies to nearly 98% of the Indian pin codes.
The company wanted to achieve the mission of doorstep delivery of everything related to healthcare, which it is always on the verge of achieving. Digitization has become an integral component of India's healthcare industry. Be it scheduling a doctor's appointment or delivery of reports and medicines, every step in the industry has been digitized. A major chunk of the credit goes to the e-pharmacies like PharmEasy for this initiative. The "health commerce industry" in India is growing at unprecedented rates courtesy of these e-pharmacies.
PharmEasy - Name, Tagline and Logo
"Take it easy PharmEasy" says the tagline of the company.
Lakshya Singh
PharmEasy - Business Model
PharmEasy delivers medicines and other medical accessories across Indian towns and cities. It is like Grofers for medicine. The pin codes maintained by PharmEasy are used to identify pharmacies closest to the customers. Customers can either access PharmEasy's website or use its mobile app to order items. They are entitled to discounts of up to 20% if they order using the mobile app, which further increases the brand recognition and adds in new customers to PharmEasy.
PharmEasy is an e-pharmacy, the processes of which are mostly online acting as a 3-way chain between the buyers, suppliers, and the distribution network.
Buyers - PharmEasy is a ready platform from which the buyers can search for their medicines or healthcare accessories and buy them online without any hassles.
Suppliers - PharmEasy collaborates with a wide range of local suppliers and medical shops, all of which help the company to arrange their stocks and keep them live online. Besides, the company also earns revenue from various pharmaceutical companies that want to showcase their products online and on the PharmEasy app as featured brands.
Distribution channel - PharmEasy operates with a vast distribution spread out all across the nation. This helps the company to deliver their products for a broad range of pin codes all over India.
Due to various rules and regulations set by the Indian government, the company doesn't deliver Schedule H drugs. Why do people abstain from e-pharmacies? They aren't sure of where the medicines come from. PharmEasy is dispelling this notion for good.
Shubham Kumar
PharmEasy - Revenue Model
PharmEasy primarily earns by displaying the sponsored results of various pharmaceutical entities. These kinds of advertisements are found on the home page of such organizations. Advertising is a major source of revenue and this e-pharmacy leverages it to the hilt. Attractive discounts also contribute to PharmEasy's revenue. Furthermore, PharmEasy earns from commission from its customers for the healthcare products and medicines that sell via the platform. The brand also earns through the delivery charges that get levied on the products.
PharmEasy - Funding
PharmEasy has received $1.60 billion in funding to date. PharmEasy had last raised a private equity fund from VestinWolf Capital Management after raising a Pre-IPO round worth $354 from a clutch of investors.
The $500 million in the Series F funding round that was led by Arokiaswamy Velumani valued the company $1.8 billion in June 2021. The company has further raised $354 million worth of funding in its Pre-IPO round of funding split into 2 rounds.
The primary round saw an infusion of $204 mn from Amansa Capital, Steadview Capital, OrbiMed, Abu Dhabi’s sovereign wealth fund ADQ, and more. In the second round of funding that PharmEasy received, the company mopped up around $150 mn from the partial exits of a bunch of existing angel and other early-stage investors like Fundamentum, Eight Roads Ventures, Bessemer Venture Partners, and others. PharmEasy, which is all set to file its Draft Red Herring Prospectus (DRHP) has also disclosed that over 20 senior employees, five founders, and some of the new investors have picked secondary shares at a valuation of $5.6 Bn. The company is currently valued at $5.4 bn, as of February 2022. The company is yet to decide on its IPO round and will not be setting its pricing before the nod from SEBI.
| Date | Series | Amount | Investors |
|---|---|---|---|
| November 1, 2021 | Private Equity Fund | - | VestinWolf Capital Management |
| October 18, 2021 | Pre-IPO Round | $354 million | Amansa Capital, Fundamentum, Steadview Capital, Abu Dhabi’s sovereign wealth fund ADQ and more |
| July 7, 2021 | Series F | $500 million | Arokiaswamy Velumani |
| June 17, 2021 | Secondary Market | $20 million | B Capital |
| April 7, 2021 | Series E | $390 million | Prosus Ventures, TPG Growth and others |
| November 27, 2019 | Series D | $220 million | Temasek Holdings and others |
| September 26, 2018 | Series C | $50 million | Eight Roads Ventures India and others |
| September 11, 2018 | Debt Financing | $5.44 million | InnoVen Capital and more |
| February 28, 2018 | Series C | $27.23 million | Eight Roads Ventures India, F-Prime Capital, and others |
| April 25, 2017 | Series B | $2 Million | Bessemer Venture Partners |
| March 30, 2017 | Series B | $16 Million | Bessemer Venture Partners |
| March 1, 2016 | Series A | $5 Million | Bessemer Venture Partners |
Devashish Shrivastava
PharmEasy - Acquisitions
The last company that PharmEasy has acquired is a Bangalore-based healthcare supply chain management company, Aknamed. The latter has approved the selling of 975,937 equity shares at Rs 3,155.94 to API Holdings in order to raise around Rs 308 crores (around $42 million) from the parent company of PharmEasy, according to the regulatory filings. Furthermore, the company has also reportedly bought out the stakes from the top 5 promoters of the company including its co-founders, who held around 50.67% stakes. Aknamed will now behave as the subsidiary of the PharmEasy parent, API Holdings Pvt Ltd.
PharmEasy has previously acquired 66.1% stakes in Thyrocare, Mumbai-based Indian diagnostics, and preventive care laboratories, in a Rs 4,546 crore deal on June 26, 2021. Docon Technologies Pvt Ltd, a subsidiary of the parent company of PharmEasy, API Holdings, has been the acquirer.
PharmEasy has acquired 3 companies -
Aknamed - A healthcare company that strives to streamline the supply chain of the industry in India. PharmEasy has acquired Aknamed on September 14, 2021. PharmEasy acquired the majority stakes of Aknamed for an initial investment of Rs 308 crores ($41.90 mn). The company will be acquiring Aknamed completely in a few months in a deal size estimated to be around Rs 1000 crores ($136.04 mn).
Thyrocare technologies - Thyrocare is a full automatic diagnostic laboratory, which claims to be the first of its kind in India. PharmEasy acquired Thyrocare on June 26, 2021. In a definitive agreement where the company has acquired 66.1% stakes in Thyrocare, the deal size is mentioned at Rs 4564 crores ($620 mn).
Medlife - Medlife is an online medicine supplier from Bangalore, India, which has facilities for home delivery. Medlife was acquired by PharmEasy on August 18, 2020. The company acquired majority stakes in Medlife valued at $250 million.
Here's taking a look at it in the form of a table:
| Acquiree Name | Date | Price |
|---|---|---|
| Aknamed | September 14, 2021 | $144 mn |
| Thyrocare Technologies | June 26, 2021 | $605.70 mn |
| Medlife | August 18, 2020 | $235 mn |
PharmEasy has reportedly been valued at $5.4 bn in February 2022. Due to the exceptional growth that the company has seen, PharmEasy has decided to reward the cofounders and employees by creating new employee stock options (ESOPs) for them.
The healthcare major has passed a special resolution, where it has declared that it will be allotting around 79,987 ESOPs to each of the five co-founders of the firm - Siddharth Shah, Dharmil Sheth, Hardik Dedhia, Karsh Parekh, and Dhaval Shah. The collective worth of all these shares making the Founders’ ESOP pool is estimated to be around Rs 236 crores.
PharmEasy - Challenges Faced
The company started its journey in the year 2014 and has now become a major player in the online pharmacy segment. However, PharmEasy didn't witness overnight success. Challenges are inevitable and the mentioned e-pharmacy also had its share of problems. It was difficult for PharmEasy to deliver products without a prescription.
Knowing the medicines by their names wasn't enough. A valid prescription was compulsory for supplying the products. Many didn't want to upload their prescriptions fearing consequences. Furthermore, location tracking back then when the company started, was difficult for PharmEasy's delivery agents. It is not like that anymore, though.
The company eventually overcame the challenges thrown at it and has grown tremendously since its inception in 2014.
PharmEasy - Customer Acquisition
Customer acquisition of a company totally depends upon trust and faith. It's a symbiotic relationship of how much the company is giving to its customers and how those users are benefitting in return.
Acquiring new users has not been problematic for PharmEasy ever since it overcame the initial hiccups and challenges. A solid user-retention rate has proved PharmEasy's expertise in keeping customers satisfied.
PharmEasy - Competitors
The company's top competitors are -
- Tata 1Mg
- Ranger Health
- Medibuddy
- Myra Medicines
- Hello Heart
- BrownPacket and more.
Besides, there are also other hospitals and chains like Apollo Pharmacy that are trying to boost the overall sales via their online platform along with their brick and mortar stores. Most of the companies mentioned here are trying to reinforce their online delivery system of medicines. However, most of them are trailing PharmEasy.
PharmEasy - Growth and Revenue
The company is witnessing massive growth. The company has nearly doubled its revenue from Rs 340 cr in the past financial year to around Rs 737 cr in FY20. Impressive! Dhaval Shah and Dharmil Sheth are playing a major role in this growth through excellent leadership and superior decision-making. As per the financial reports of the fiscal year 2021, PharmEasy has set another record of growth with a 220% jump to collect Rs 2,360 cr worth of revenues in FY21 from Rs 737.4 cr that it witnessed during FY20.
The expenses of the company also ballooned along with the revenues to become Rs 2,980.9 cr in FY21 from Rs 1,084.4 cr in FY20, which marks a 147.8% rise. Speaking of profit and loss, PharmEasy has been piling on its losses, which rose around 91% to become Rs 641.3 Cr in FY21, from Rs 335.2 Cr that it posted during FY20
| PharmEasy Financials | FY21 | FY20 | FY19 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Revenue | Rs 2,360 Cr | Rs 737.4 Cr | Rs 363 Cr |
| Expenses | Rs 2,980.9 Cr | Rs 1,084.4 Cr | - |
| Profit/Loss | Loss of Rs 641.3 Cr | Loss of Rs 335.2 Cr | Loss of ~Rs 100 Cr |
| EBITDA | - | - | - |
PharmEasy has filed its DRHP with the market regulator SEBI and is planning to raise up to Rs 6,250 crores through a fresh issue of shares, on November 10, 2021. The existing investors of the company will not be selling any shares in the upcoming IPO, as per the DRHP. Furthermore, PharmEasy has also announced that it would be looking for a pre-IPO fundraise of upto INR 1,250 Cr via private placement after consulting with the BRLMs (Book running lead manager). However, according to the latest news, PharmEasy is looking to slash its IPO valuation considering the volatility of the current market, as of February 19, 2022.
PharmEasy currently partners with over 60K brick and mortar pharmacies from across the country and has served 20 mn+ patients since it was formed.
Finally, there is no shortcut to success and PharmEasy is a case in point. From being an unknown candidate in the online pharmacy space to becoming an established brand, Dharmil Sheth-founded PharmEasy has conquered varying obstacles to reach the zenith of success.
PharmEasy - Future Plans
PharmEasy had initially decided to raise close to Rs 6,250 cr via a fresh issue of shares towards the end of 2021. This IPO round is being mulled over by the pharmacy unicorn, as of February 2022. The healthcare unicorn is currently reconsidering the launch time of its IPO the reason being the volatility of the market.
PharmEasy - FAQs
Who is PharmEasy Owner?
API Holdings Private Limited is the Parent Organisation of PharmEasy. Dhaval Shah and Dharmil Sheth are Founders of PharmEasy.
How much is PharmEasy Revenue and Profit?
PharmEasy nearly doubled its revenue in FY20 to Rs 637 crore. PharmEasy's losses for the period is around Rs 100.7 crore.
How PharmEasy works?
Customers can upload a prescription on PharmEasy, which is then sent to a drugstore in your vicinity. The package is then delivered to their doorsteps within the stipulated time.
How much is PharmEasy Net worth?
PharmEasy is valued at $5.6 billion after the company raised an amount of $350 million in two of the most recent rounds of funding, summed up as its Pre-IPO round.
Source :- https://startuptalky.com/ Author :- Purbalee Dutta Date :-February 19, 2022 at 02:40PM