Japan Based Rohto Invests $5 Mn In Online Pharmacy SastaSundar

Japan-based pharmaceutical company Rohto Pharmaceutical has invested $5 Mn (INR 33.4 Cr) in online pharmacy SastaSundar Healthbuddy Limited.

With this funding, Rohto will assist SastaSundar in scaling its operations pan-India.

Dr. Lekh Singh Juneja, Rohto’s executive Vice-President and Global Head International Business said, “Rohto is looking for the expansion of its base in India with SastaSundar.com as its preferred partner in the ecommerce business. SastaSundar.com has shown significant growth in a short span since starting their operations and we were impressed with their business model.”

Founded in 2013, Kolkata-based SastaSundar.com is a digital network for managing healthcare, pharma, and wellness product supply chain. It acts as a channel for connecting doctors, diagnostic services, health care clinics, and health information services. The focus is on using knowledge and digital connectivity to reduce cost and make the availability of high quality medicines convenient.

The digital network of the platform is built on the O2O model of healthcare delivery and inventory-less service centre of the franchise called Healthbuddy.

As per a company statement for the year ended March 2017, the GMV of SastaSundar.com was $23.6 Mn (INR 153 Cr) and it claims to have delivered close to 1.7 Mn orders. The company claims to have about 178 Healthbuddy stores with 440K registered customers.

Currently, the startup has operations in West Bengal only and plans to expand to pan India. As per BL Mittal, founder and Executive Chairman, SastaSundar Healthbuddy Limited the startup will soon expand to Delhi. The platform aims to have around 250 Healthbuddy stores in West Bengal and 50 Healthbuddy stores in Delhi by March, 2018.

Founded in 1899, Rohto is a Japanese firm which offers various over-the-counter drugs and other healthcare products. Rohto entered the Indian market in 2010, by establishing its subsidiary, Rohto Pharma (India) Pvt. Ltd, with lip care brand ‘LipIce’. The following year, the firm introduced a range of products like “LipIce Colour” and eventually launched two new brands in India – ‘OXY’ and ‘Acnes’ for specialised skin care.

According to an IBEF report, the overall Indian healthcare market is poised at $100 Bn. It is expected to touch $280 Bn by 2020, growing at a CAGR of 22.9%.

In December 2016, 1mg, Gurugram-based Healthkart’s online drug search business, acquired MediAngels to strengthen its position in the eHealth space in India. In January 2017, Bengaluru-based online healthcare platform Practo raised $55 Mn Series D funding in a round led by Tencent. With the funding, three new investors joined Practo – ru-Net, RSI Fund (owned by Recruit Holdings), and Thrive Capital.

Other existing investors Sequoia Capital, Matrix Partners, Capital G (formerly Google Capital), Altimeter Capital, and Sofina also participated in the round. Other startups that compete with SastaSundar in this segment include NetMeds, CareOnGo, Lybrate, Ziffi, Zoctr, etc.