Tata 1mg Turns Unicorn After Raising $40 Mn In Funding Round Led By Tata Digital

Online pharmacy startup Tata 1Mg has become the country’s 107th unicorn after raising close to $40 Mn in a funding round led by Tata Digital. The other participants in the round were KWE Beteiligungen AG, HBM Healthcare Investments, among others, according to a regulatory filing.

As per Inc42’s calculations, the Gurugram-headquartered epharmacy and telemedicine startup was valued at $1.09 Bn in the funding round. 

Tata Digital infused around $32 Mn in the latest round in exchange for 24,711 equity shares of Tata 1mg. 

With this investment, Tata Digital now has three unicorn startups under its belt – Big Basket, CultFit, and Tata 1mg. 

Tata 1mg is the fifth Indian healthtech startup after PharmEasy, Innovaccer, Curefit, and Pristyn Care to enter the coveted unicorn club. 

1mg was one of the earliest bets of the Tata Group in the run up to the launch of the country’s first superapp – Tata Neu. Tata Digital acquired a majority stake in Tata 1mg (then 1MG) in June last year. While the deal amount was not disclosed, it is estimated that Tata Digital infused about $100 Mn to $120 Mn in the startup then.

Prior to the Tata 1mg acquisition, Tata Digital also acquired a majority stake in BigBasket to strengthen its grocery delivery offerings. 

Tata 1mg was founded in 2015 by Prashant Tandon, Gaurav Aggarwal and Vikas Chauhan. The platform was launched to offer medicine delivery, health and wellness products, diagnostics services along with doctor consultancy. 

It got a boost during the pandemic as more and more customers relied on online platforms for medicine delivery and medical tests. Tata 1mg claims to have a supply chain covering over 20,000 postal codes in the country. 

Taking a cue from grocery delivery startups, Tata 1mg launched 60-minute delivery of medicines in select cities, including the Delhi-NCR region, last year. 

Tata 1mg reported widening of its loss to INR 526 Cr in financial year 2021-22 (FY22) from INR 314 Cr in FY21. Its total consolidated revenue jumped 104% to INR 644.8 Cr in FY22 from INR 316 Cr in FY21. Revenue from operations stood at INR 627 Cr in FY22. Total expenses also shot up over 85% to INR 1,171 Cr from INR 630 Cr in FY21.

The healthtech startups in the country raised a total of $5.5 Bn across 718 deals between 2014 and the end of first half of 2022, as per an Inc42 report. The sector has over 460 funded startups and is backed by over 1.3K investors. 

India’s healthtech market is anticipated to touch $21 Bn by 2025, growing at a CAGR of 26%. The telemedicine and online pharmacy subsectors are expected to provide a market opportunity of $5.4 Bn and $4.2 Bn by 2025, respectively.

This development was first reported by Entrackr