IT industry veteran Phaneesh Murthy launches online marketplace for medicines

Entering a new arena, former iGate CEO Phaneesh Murthy is launching an online market place for healthcare products and services in partnership with four professionals.

Murthy today announced launch of PM Health & Life Care Pvt Ltd which will start the online market place.

The first step in the venture will be an online market place which connects chemists and druggists with consumers, PM Health & Life Care said in a release.

The release said the family fund of Phaneesh Murthy has led the seed round of USD 3.2 million.

In the venture, Murthy is going to actively play the role as Executive Chairman, the company said, adding the venture plans to raise its first round of capital shortly bringing the total invested amount in the company to about USD 8-10 million.

One of the pioneers in Indian IT industry, Murthy has also worked with Infosys in the past but his name surfaced in alleged sexual harassment cases at both the IT firms.

Last month, Murthy had said that all charges relating to a sexual misconduct case at US-based outsourcing firm iGate had been "settled".

Commenting on the new venture, Murthy, Co-Founder and Chairman of PMHLC, said, "The proposed health exchange is an innovative model, bringing technology as the great enabler for facilitating well-informed healthcare access."

"The health exchange meets the latent need of the consumers, clinics, hospitals, diagnostic centres and doctors to make quality healthcare accessible and efficient to a large population," he said.

The company will only work with providers of goods and services who meet all regulatory and quality standards, the release said.

It said that the founding team includes Murthy as Chairman and Hemant Bhardwaj as CEO.

Umesh Naidu will be Chief Operating Officer, Anil Bajpai be Chief Technology Officer and Harshit Singhal will be Chief Finance Officer and Head of Strategy, it added.