By Salman SH
IPO-bound online pharmacy start-up PharmEasy has raised $350 million (Rs 2,635.22 crore) in a fresh equity financing round from a bunch of new investors, valuing the company at $5.6 billion (Rs 42,197.79 crore), documents sourced from the Registrar of Companies (RoC) showed on Monday.
The new round included primary funding of $205 million (Rs 1,505.89 crore) and a secondary component of $140 million (Rs 1,054.94 crore), documents showed.
An Economic Times report on Monday said PharmEasy founders Dharmil Sheth and Dr Dhaval Shah purchased secondary shares worth $40 million in the round. Around 20 employees also exercised their employee stock options (ESOPs) worth $5 million in the new funding round, the report added.
The primary funding worth $205 million was secured from new investors, including Singapore-based Amansa Capital, Hong Kong-based hedge fund ApaH Capital, US hedge fund Janus Henderson, OrbiMed, Steadview Capital, Abu Dhabi-based sovereign wealth fund ADQ, New York-based hedge fund Neuberger Berman and London’s Sanne Group.
Documents with RoC showed that PharmEasy structured the deal through a mix of both regular equity shares and Compulsorily Convertible Preference Shares (CCPS). PharmEasy’s board approved fresh allotment equity shares to the new investors on September 27, 2021, according to the regulatory documents.
The online pharmacy start-up issued 3.78 lakh equity shares at a face value of Rs 10 per share to 8 allottees which included a heavy premium of Rs 5,890 per share. In addition to this, PharmEasy also issued another 1.04 lakh convertible preference shares to 3 allottees at a face value of Rs 10 per share at the same premium.
Founded in 2015 by Sheth and Dr Shah, PharmEasy currently claims to connect more than 60,000 brick-and-mortar pharmacies and 4,000 doctors across 16,000 zip codes across the country. The start-up also claims to have served more than 20 million customers.
To date, PharmEasy has raised over $1.2 billion in equity and debt funding and its last significant deal was the $600-million acquisition of diagnostics chain Thyrocare in June this year.
PharmEasy parent company API Holdings Pvt Ltd is expected to file its draft red herring prospectus (DRHP) with market regulator Sebi by the end of October this year and is likely to go public by March next year, according to previous reports.
PharmEasy was the first unicorn in the online pharmacy start-up that achieved the coveted status in April 2021.