How This Healthtech Startup is Solving the Problem of Affordable & Accessible Healthcare Services? The Indian online aggregator for medical supplies Medikabazaar has raised $5 million in Series A round of funding led by Quadria founders-led HealthQuad

The growing acceptance of technology has positively affected many sectors in India. A plethora of startups with unique ideas have entered the market to disrupt the traditional retail model by providing a wide choice of consumer goods at highly competitive rates with the convenience of ordering online. Medical attendants now also seek similar convenience while buying medical equipment and consumables.

A plethora of young players like MedPlus, 1mg, NetMeds, Zoctr, Lybrate and Tricog have been leveraging the opportunity by making affordable medical services available to customers. MedikaBazaar, however, went a step ahead by bringing vendors and providers of medical equipment closer through a great technology backbone of aggregation platform of e-commerce.

Having seen the potential of scalable growth in this unique online aggregator for medical supplies, the leading healthcare venture capital fund, HealthQuad got interested to invest in it. Medikabazaar has raised $5 million in Series A round of funding led by HealthQuad. The strategic partnership will help the startup in strengthening its foothold in the healthcare industry.

Fund Relevance

The Mumbai-based startup envisions to lead the B2B healthcare procurement e-commerce business and the recent fund raise led by HealthQuad could play a crucial role in its scaling plans. "The investments have been very strategic in nature and aligned to the disruptive growth of the company. The funds will be utilized to increase the leadership team and the fulfilment reach including tier 2/3 regions," Medikabazaar CEO, Vivek Tiwari told Entrepreneur India.

The funds would be utilized to scale the startup's technology teams and the evolving intuitive technologies they are currently using to improve customer experience. Mediabazaar uses "AI-based consumption predictions and proprietary intuitive algorithm models to help minimize inventory management costs for medical establishments," Tiwari added.

The investment will further facilitate streamlining the startup's supply chain and logistics capability to reach 50,000 hospitals and clinics by the end of next financial year. The online aggregator of medical supplies further plans to increase its fulfilment centres from existing seven to more than 20 across India including tier 2 and 3 locations.

Delighted with their association with Medikabazaar, HealthQuad founder, Dr Amit Varma said, "Medikabazaar has disrupted the entire supply chain model, to directly reach hospitals and clinics across metros and smaller towns, offering competitively priced quality products in the desired time-frame through its technology platform."

Social Goals & Achievements

The startup has helped hospitals reduce procurements costs by up to 25 per cent through reduced storage, benchmarking, price comparisons, and speciality & product selection based recommendations. "The increasing penetration of insurance has stressed on better infrastructure demands by patients through better medical furniture and management systems to name the few," informed Tiwari.

Ayushman Bharat ensuring virtually half the population has given a sudden push in up gradation of infrastructure and creation of more medical centres, making Medikabazaar a one-stop solution. "We are furthering the make in India initiative and supporting innovative startups in medical products space to help them reach out cost-effectively to our entire ecosystem," Tiwari boosted.

Fact Sheet

Found by Vivek Tiwari and Ketan Malkan in 2015, Medikabazaar is one of the leading B2B online marketplaces for medical equipment and supplies in India. The platform enables hospitals and doctors to make a direct purchase of medical devices and hospital supplies without the interference of any middle party and geographical boundations.

In the recent funding round, other major investors apart from HealthQuad include Elan Corporation, Sasaki Foods, CBCCo Ltd, Kois Invest, Mitsui Sumitomo Insurance Venture Capital and existing investors Sunil Kalra, Arun Venkatachalam and Rebright Partners II Investment Partnership. The company had earlier raised $1 million in the pre-series A round of funding in last fiscal.