E-pharmacy marketplace 1mg has raised an undisclosed additional funding in its Series B round through global healthcare -focused fund HBM Healthcare Investments AG’s first direct investment in digital health company in India.
This funding comes in addition to the recently closed Series B round of Rs 100 crore led by Maverick Capital Ventures. Earlier known as HealthKartPlus, 1mg had raised $6 million (Rs 32 crore) from Sequoia Capital, Kae Capital, Intel Capital, Omidyar Network and MakeMyTrip founder Deep Kalra in April 2015.
HBM is a healthcare-focused investor with around $1 billion under management. It focuses on development and growth stage funding as well as buyout financing of private companies. It also invests in public companies.
Andreas Wicki, CEO, HBM Healthcare , said, “All companies in the healthcare domain are looking for innovative platforms to partner with to connect better with their consumers – very few platforms have managed to achieve the consumer engagement at scale like 1mg has done.”
1mg founder Prashant Tandon said that the company records about 75 million annual visits on its platform. It competes with the likes of NetMeds, mChemist, Pluss, Medikoe and BigChemist.
Brick-and-mortar retail pharmacies such as MedPlus and Guardian Lifecare have also entered the online segment. Practo Technologies Pvt Ltd, which sells web-based clinical management software and runs a listing platform for healthcare professionals, has recently added an in-app feature that allows users to order medicines from brick-and-mortar pharmacies in Bangalore.
