Online Pharmacy Startup Aermed Raises Seed Funding Led by Windlas Healthcare's CEO Hitesh Windlass

Aermed, a full service pharmacy and lab aggregator with a focus on chronic patients, has raised an undisclosed amount of seed funding in a round led by Hitesh Windlass, CEO of Windlas Healthcare. Other investors include angels working at a Boston based Private equity firm and a New York based global Investment bank.

The company’s value proposition lies in its ordering convenience combined with great savings for its chronic patients, whose fixed monthly prescription drug expenses are substantial. Aermed has so far enrolled about 2,500 customers on subscription, and has maintained 80%+ repeat-use rates. Aermed helps customers store and track their medical records in a user-friendly application helping make prescription compliance very convenient.

The startup was launched in January 2016 by IIT Delhi, IIM Calcutta alumni – Naishadh Sutaria and Aayush Jindal both former Consultants at Bain & Co., Nandit Pathak from Unilever and Ashish Prakash from Sentio.

“Our customers value our guaranteed 24 hour delivery, prompt & reliable service and the best-in-class savings we provide. We have also built an automated & scalable supply chain network which includes real time inventory sharing with our suppliers and enables us to reach a 100% fulfillment rate of orders,” said Naishadh Sutaria, Co Founder of Aermed.

Customers can place their orders either through the website, the app, over phone or also through Whatsapp. “We have achieved Product market fit and by reaching our chronic customers where they are most comfortable we are able to cater to them effectively. The Chronic medicines market is a $10 billion market and growing at a CAGR of 15 - 17%. Online pharmacy, by our estimate, is less than 1% of the market in even urban markets, and has tremendous headroom for growth” said Sutaria.

The startup claims to have low cash burn and is achieving operational break-even already. The funds will be used across back end development by setting up additional hubs for fulfillment, augmenting logistics infrastructure and customer acquisition across Delhi NCR.