CareOnGo Raises Pre series A Funding, Launches New Pharmalytics Feature to Disrupt the Pharmaceutical Supply Chain
CareOnGo , India’s first mobile chain of co-branded pharmacy stores, has raised an undisclosed amount in Pre series A round of funding led by Farooq Oomerbhoy of FAO Ventures and a consortium of investors, which includes Anupam Mittal and Anand Mittal of People Group; Ravi Garikipati, Head of Flipkart's ads business; Vibhu Garg, Co-Founder of Unicommerce; Singapore Angel Network and Konglo Ventures among others.The round also saw participation from US, Singapore and Muscat-based investors.
Founded by IIT-IIM alumni, Aditya Kandoi, Ritu Singh and Yogesh Agarwal, CareOnGo has already built a co-branded network of micro-pharmacies across 8 cities in India and help them procure, manage and sell through technology. The company is India’s first e-Distributor enabling bulk procurement channel for the co-branded pharmacies thus bringing efficiencies in the entire supply chain. Furthermore, their proprietary analytics platform ‘Pharmalytics’ enables co-branded pharmacies to study sales insights of most-selling medicines in their areas long with keeping a track of Freshness quotient, thus allowing them to shift from blind inventory to measured real-time inventory. Not only this, the platform also enables automatic customer profiling by capturing very localized data of supply and demand thus enabling big data analytics on individual customers from any area. The analytics platform also captures the essence of seasonality including Category Stocking thus helping pharmacies to stock medicines and other healthcare products well in advance.
Farooq Oomerbhoy added, "It is encouraging to see the support and confidence some of the leading investors have shown in CareOnGo by participating in their Pre-Series A round. CareOnGo, thanks to it's highly dedicated founding team, has grown at a tremendous pace and is being recognised as an integral platform by its partner/co-branded Pharmacies. CareOnGo has delivered tremendous value to each of its partner pharmacies by growing their topline by 20-30%. Bringing about a seamless integration for the micro-pharmacies from procurement to sale of medicines with an added layer of deep analytics, CareOnGo aims to disrupt the pharmaceutical sales chain."
Differentiating itself completely from other healthcare players in the segment who are only B2C focused, the company is redefining end-to-end solutions by catering to the needs of micro-pharmacies from both procurement and sales segments – a focus onto the B2B front. The company is providing POS solution to these pharmacies to streamline the payment process, both online and offline. Their ERP solution is linked to the inventory of the pharmacy, enabling real-time availability of medicines and OTC products. The ERP solution uses the localized demand analytics data helping them in predictive inventory management for greater savings and better stock management.
CareOnGo’s consumer focused app not only allows consumers to buy medicines but also create a transparency by allowing them to know their medicine needs better – side effects, salt details, dosage limits, cheaper substitutes and complimentary OTC products to buy along. The recommendation algorithm study the browsing behavior and buying pattern to suggest products most needed by the consumers. The app is adding 25,000 chronic patients every month on the platform ensuring repeat business and standardized services for the pharmacies.
Speaking on the new round of funding, Yogesh Agarwal, Co-Founder, CareOnGo said ”The funds raised will be invested in research and further development of our technology offerings, with special focus on analytics product. We will further expand our B2B offerings deeper into the pharmacies by providing seamless analytics, advance POS solutions and aggregating micro-pharmacies in India under a single umbrella of co-branding.”
The online pharmacy platform has witnessed tremendous growth so far with entering the B2B space by enabling bulk procurement for the micro-pharmacies. The co-branded pharmacy store has seen 200% growth in its business by leveraging the network CareOnGo is building by connecting the micro-pharmacies together on a single platform.
