Pharmacy Chain Generico Bags INR 10 Cr From Alteria For Expansion

Pharmacy chain Generico has raised $1.39 Mn (INR 10 Cr) in Series A from venture debt fund Alteria Capital. The investment was a part of Alteria’s venture debt fund of $134 Mn (INR 962 Cr), which got its final close in July 2019.

Back in September 2019, Generico raised $11 Mn in Series A from Lightbox, marking the investment firms entry into the healthcare segment. In addition, Tomorrow Capital, Whiteboard Capital, and angel investor Gagan Goyal also invested $3 Mn in the same round in December 2018. So far, the company has raised $15.39 Mn in Series A round.

Founded in 2017 by Siddharth Gadia and Girish Agarwal, Mumbai-based Generico is a specialised pharmacy retail chain of generic medicines that are more affordable than brand-name medicines. With this funding, Generico plans to strengthen its supply chain, technology and healthcare prepositions.

The pharmacy chain also wants to expand its outlet from the current 49 stores to 150 stores in Mumbai and other cities such as Pune by 2021. Besides this, Generico is also looking to diversify disease management that will have a deeper impact on the lives of consumers with chronic diseases.

Generico founder Agarwal previously told Inc42, “For chronic patients just popping pills is not going to solve problems, there needs to be an intervention in their disease journey to be able to take control of their conditions. We’ll be coming out with a very impactful and disease management solution.”

In the long run, Generico also plans to enter into epharmacies. “We believe that there is a set of customers, who prefer convenience. Yes, the pharmacy is going to be an omnichannel place. We’ll definitely have an online portal as well,” he had added

In the current statement, Alteria Capital’s managing partner Vinod Murali added that Generico is currently working on creating a “strong” network of “omnichannel healthcare delivery” and pharmacies are the starting point.

Besides Generico, other players in the healthcare domain include Pristyn Care, mfine, 1mg, Innovaccer, Zoctr, Portea Medical and Care24. In December 2019, Gurugram-based surgical care platform Pristyn Care raised $12 Mn in Series B from Sequoia Capital India, Hummingbird Ventures, Greenoaks Capital and AngelList to expand its healthcare operations and technology.

As per DataLabs by Inc42, report of 2019, the Indian healthcare industry was projected to be worth $202 Bn, marking a growth of 84% from 2016. In 2016, the Indian healthcare industry was valued at $110 Bn. Another report by DataLabs by Inc42 noted that the healthtech startups have raised $1.9 Bn across 405 deals between 2014-H1 2019.