Prosus, TPG lead $350m round for India pharmacy player
Prosus Ventures and TPG Growth have co-led a $350 million Series E round for India’s API Holdings, best known as the parent of pharmacy portal PharmEasy.
Existing investors Temasek Holdings, Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec (CDPQ), Eight Roads, and Lightrock, formerly LGT Lightstone Aspada, also took part, as did US hedge fund Think Investments. The deal involves $323 million in staged primary and secondary investments, with an additional $27 million of commitments set to close imminently.
It follows a $220 million Series D in 2019 that featured BVP India Investors, KB Financial Group, and Orios Venture Partners. The company has raised about $675 million to date, with previous backers also including Eight Roads’ sister fund F-Prime Capital Ventures, Fundamentum, InnoVen Capital India, JM Financial, Trifecta Capital Advisors, Aarin Capital, and Astarc Ventures.
Earlier funding rounds have been billed as PharmEasy investments, but API is now emphasizing its profile as a portfolio of various digital healthcare platforms. All together, these services are said to connect more than 60,000 brick-and-mortar pharmacies and 4,000 doctors nationwide. The idea is to better organize doorstep drug delivery supply chains and support procurement, logistics, and credit options through a range of software-as-a-service offerings.
API brands itself as India’s largest consumer digital healthcare platform operator with two million users a month and more than 20 million patients served since inception in 2015. However, its operational footprint appears to have contracted since the Series C. The company currently claims to support pharmacies in 16,000 zip codes across India, compared to more than 22,000 in 2018. At that time, PharmEasy had tracked more than 200% annual growth for three consecutive years.
The new capital will be used to deepen API’s relationships and penetration in its existing geographical markets with a view to expanding its network to more than 100,000 pharmacies in the next 12 months. There will also be a technology build-out aimed at providing more services to both patients and healthcare practitioners. This appears likely to include a significant focus on B2B services for drug manufacturers and distributors, as well as the pharmacies themselves.
“API Holdings has built a unique, omnichannel, multi-layered, outpatient healthcare platform that holds a strong position across B2C and B2B segments.,” Ankur Thadani, a partner at TPG Growth, said in a statement. “We are excited to partner with this passionate, ambitious and mission-driven management team to grow and enhance the platform and help it reach every Indian.”
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