About:

API Holdings Limited (AHL), as per its annual report, the company was engaged in the business of providing diversified delivery/logistics services which includes pick-up and delivery of pharmaceutical and nutraceutical products, to its group entities, as well as third parties, being wholesalers, retailers and marketplace entities across the healthcare ecosystem. Further, during the year under review, the company had transferred its businesses of wholesale and distribution of drugs (including pharmaceutical products, medical devices, and OTC drugs) and ownership of technology and intellectual property for developing e-commerce platforms including marketplaces for facilitating the sale of pharmaceutical, medical devices, and OTC drugs to its wholly-owned subsidiaries through a slump sale on a going concern basis.

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Overview:

Established by Dharmil Seth and Dr Dhaval Shah, PharmEasy serves every habitable zip code. The authorised share capital of the company is Rs. 1031.08 Cr and the total paid up capital is Rs. 619.69 Cr. The initial idea of the company was to give end users an online pharmacy, but with the inclusion of consultation from trusted doctors and diagnostic tests from renowned laboratories, the application turned out to be quintessential. Furthermore, the company closed a revenue of ₹57,288.21 crores in the fiscal year 2022 opposed to Rs. 2,335 crores in 2021.

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In 2023, PharmEasy made developmental changes and took steps to increase its profitability share in the market. It has significantly reduced its marketing & growth expense from 7.9% to 3.3% of revenue in 2023. As a result, the company’s total marketing expenses fell to Rs. 201 crores.  Moving to its EBITDA (Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortisation) margin, the rates improved from -13.6% to -8.4% in FY 2023. 

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PharmEasy strategically focuses on increasing its share of margin accretive private labels during the period of FY 2022-23. Additionally, it developed a focus on investing to scale up its cross-sell capabilities to get high-margin services for customers. For the fiscal year 2023, almost 50 lakh customers, which constitutes 13.8% of the total PharmEasy consumer base, avail their diagnostic services. 

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Journey:

The businesses have a presence across the country, with last-mile 163 capabilities to deliver in over 18,587 pin codes (for June 2021) via PharmEasy marketplace, allowing the ability to provide access in an affordable manner to the common man. The platforms have scaled across urban, semi-urban, and rural India, with an ability to serve people across income groups and geographies.

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2015 - Started the journey in Mumbai and received angel funding.

2016 - Received Series-A funding and expanded into 5 cities. The same year they started a home-diagnostics service.

2017 - Received Series-B funding and expanded into 700 cities. Launched online delivery of health care products.

2018 - Received Series-C funding and expanded PAN India presence.

2019 - Received Series-D funding and expanded more than 22000+ PIN codes.

2020- It has merged with Ascent Health and 5 other companies to form API Holdings, to form India's biggest online healthcare company.

2021 - It has purchased 66% stakes in Thyrocare and this is the first listed company to be acquired by any Unicorn in India.

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Currently, there is a team of 4000+ dedicated employees and have more than 10000+ retail stores working 24*7 to ensure medicines are delivered on time and at the best possible prices.

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Product and Services:

If you check the website of PharmaEasy, you will find the following services;

(i) Online Medicine Ordering: PharmEasy delivery agents collect medicine from Pharmacy stores and deliver it to the users.

(ii) Healthcare Products: Similar to buying medicine, you can buy various healthcare products such as Nutraceuticals, Personal care, Skin Care, Ayurvedic Products, Life-Style Ailments Products.

(iii) Diagnostics Tests: Under this service, you can book diagnostics tests under PharmEasy labs. PharmEasy labs is a diagnostic service offered by its partner lab Medlife Labs directly. Medlife is now being acquired by PharmEasy. As they have recently acquired Thyrocare, they are giving the option to book tests from these labs as well.