Online pharmacy 1mg raises funds from Swiss investor HBM Healthcare

Online drug marketplace 1mg, operated by Gurgaon-based 1mg Technologies Pvt Ltd, has secured funding from Swiss investment firm HBM Healthcare Investments in an addition to its recently closed Series B round.

This is HBM's first direct investment in a digital health company in India, 1mg said in a statement.

The company last month raised Rs 100 crore ($15 million) in a Series B round led by Maverick Capital Ventures, the venture capital arm of US-based hedge fund Maverick Capital, and existing investors Sequoia Capital and Omidyar Network.

1mg, earlier known as HealthKartPlus, had raised $6 million (Rs 32 crore) from Sequoia Capital, Kae Capital, Intel Capital, Omidyar Network and MakeMyTrip founder Deep Kalra in April 2015.

HBM is a healthcare-focused investor with around $1 billion under management. It focuses on development and growth stage funding as well as buyout financing of private companies. It also invests in public companies.

"All companies in the healthcare domain are looking for innovative platforms to partner with to connect better with their consumers – very few platforms have managed to achieve the consumer engagement at scale like 1mg has done," said Andreas Wicki, CEO, HBM Healthcare.

1mg founder Prashant Tandon said that the company records about 75 million annual visits on its platform.

The company competes with NetMeds, mChemist, Pluss, Medikoe and BigChemist. Brick-and-mortar retail pharmacies such as MedPlus and Guardian Lifecare have also entered the online segment. Practo Technologies Pvt Ltd, which sells web-based clinical management software and runs a listing platform for healthcare professionals, recently added an in-app feature that allows users to order medicines from brick-and-mortar pharmacies in Bangalore.

In April, Careongo Technology Pvt Ltd, which runs a chain of co-branded online pharmacies, raised an undisclosed amount in a pre-Series A round of funding from Farooq Oomerbhoy of FAO Ventures and a group of other investors.

In October 2015, Netmeds received investment commitment of $50 million (Rs 325 crore then) from healthcare-focused global private equity firm OrbiMed and other investors.

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