IPO-Bound PharmEasy To Rope In New Investors For Its Pre-IPO Round

IPO-Bound PharmEasy Creates ESOP Pool Worth INR 591 Cr For Employees & Founders

SUMMARY

PharmEasy to bring in Steadview Capital, IIFL and a US-based hedge fund for raising its pre-IPO round

As per media report, existing investors such as Fundamentum, Eight Road Ventures and Bessemer Venture Partners are likely to make partial exit in the pre-IPO round

PharEasy’s valuation will be pegged to $5.8 Bn after it closes $300 Mn in its pre-IPO round

IPO-bound PharmEasy which is set to file its draft red herring prospectus in this month is likely to bring in a new set of investors such as Steadview Capital, IIFL and a US-hedge fund to raise its pre-IPO round.

As per an ET report, PharmEasy has already finalised a secondary transaction of around $100 Mn where existing investors such as Fundamentum, Eight Road Ventures and Bessemer Venture Partners will be making a partial exit.

The national daily reported that the epharmacy startup PharmEasy is looking to close $300 Mn in its pre-IPO round. If the startup manages to close the round, it’s valuation will increase by a billion dollars from existing $4.2 Bn to $5.8 Bn.

API Holdings, the parent company of online pharmacy marketplace Pharmeasy is said to raise $1 Bn through its initial public offering.

According to reports, API Holdings is expected to file its DRHP with the market regulator SEBI by the end of October this year and is likely to go public by March next year. With PharmEasy going for IPO next year, it will join lists of Indian tech startups such as OLA, food delivery platform Swiggy, digital payments startup Paymate, and edtech startup BYJU’s among others.

The startup has also appointed five independent directors to its board – Vineeta Rai, Subramanian Somasundaram, Dr Jaydeep Tank, Ramakant Sharma, and Deepak Vaidya. The startup said in a statement that at present, it has a total of 12 board members including the newly-appointed five independent directors.

Founded in 2015 by Dharmil Sheth and Dr. Dhaval Shah, PharmEasy claims to connect over 60,000 brick-and-mortar pharmacies and 4,000 doctors in 16,000 zip codes across India.

PharmEasy also provides SaaS solutions for pharmacies to use in procurement combined with delivery and logistics support, and credit solutions to buy over 200,000 medicines from over 3,000 pharmaceutical manufacturers. The startup claims to have served over 20 Mn patients since inception.

PharmEasy was India’s first epharmacy startup to have entered the unicorn club. The startup entered the coveted club in the second week of April this year, when a record of 6 startups such as Meesho, Gupshup, Cred, Groww, among others emerged as unicorns. The startup then had raised $323 Mn in a Series E funding round from Prosus Ventures and TPG Growth along with its existing investors.

This year, PharmEasy has acquired majority stakes in three major healthcare startups. The startup in May acquired its rival Medlife, an online pharmacy startup to strengthen its position in the epharmacy space where it competes against Reliance acquired Netmeds and Tata-backed 1Mg. In June, the startup went on to acquire 66.1% stake in listed diagnostic chain Thyrocare for INR 4,546 Cr.

Last month, Inc42 exclusively reported that API Holdings has invested INR 307 Cr in a healthcare supply chain startup Aknamed to acquire majority stakes.