PharmEasy may raise up to $1 billion before listing

Online pharmacy startup PharmEasy plans to raise around $1 billion in funds next year before going public.

"We are looking at around $1 billion in the next one year and then finalise our IPO plans. We haven't decided how much funds we would want to raise through the IPO," says Siddharth Shah, CEO of API which is the parent company of PharmEasy. However, reports suggest that PharmEasy would be raising funds of about Rs 3,000 to Rs 3,700 crore through an IPO.

Recently, PharmEasy raised $350 million from Prosus Ventures, TPG Growth, and others as part of its Series E round of funding.

Six to seven private equity funds including Singaporean investment firm Temasek, TPG, Kotak Private Equity Fund are financing the startup's acquisition of a 66.1% stake in diagnostic chain Thyrocare. The startup announced this acquisition last week, giving PharmEasy access to Thyrocare's diagnostics business which will diversify the startup's portfolio.

PharmEasy plans to finish all processes in acquiring Thyrocare in the next eight weeks. However, the startup has not yet decided what the corporate structure of the company would be after the acquisition. "There is more value that can be unlocked for us but we have not decided whether Thyrocare should delist or merge with us once we become a listed company," says Shah.

This deal is the second in less than a year for the startup after it acquired Medlife.

A rare deal where a startup is acquiring a listed entity, especially when there is consolidation in the e-pharmacy sector, PharmEasy would be acquiring Thyrocare currently led by A Velumani, Chairman & MD of Thyrocare for Rs 4,546 crore which is around Rs 1,300 crore per share.

Velumani will be separately acquiring a minority non-controlling stake, of less than 5% in API as part of a series of equity investments by existing and new investors of API.

Docon Technologies Pvt Ltd, a 100% subsidiary of API, the parent company of PharmEasy, will be the acquirer and shall make an open offer for an additional 26% stake.

PharmEasy was founded in 2015, it has over 12 million consumers, a network of over 6,000 digital consultation clinics, and has partnered with over 90,000 retailers across the country.