Digi-Prex, an online subscription pharmacy in India, has secured USD 5.5 million in a seed funding round to expand its business to 10 cities across the country.
The investors in the round include Y Combinator, Khosla Ventures, Vedanta Capital, Quiet Capital, Liquid2 Ventures, Soma Capital, PioneerFund, and Tinder founder Justin Mateen.
Digi-Prex founder Samarth Sindhi said that the new investment would allow the startup to bring its operations to Delhi, Bombay, Chennai, Bangalore, Calcutta, Ahmedabad, Indore, Jaipur, and Cochin.
Founded just this year, Digi-Prex uses AI to cater to the needs of patients with chronic diseases. Through messaging app WhatsApp, patients can share their prescription with the company and have the required items delivered to their doorsteps.
Through this business model, Sindhi said Digi-Prex is also able to reach customers in remote locations.
The healthtech startup works directly with medicine distributors, which allows it to purchase medicines at discounted rates. Some of the savings from this are then passed on to its customers by giving them lower prices compared to them buying over-the-counter, Sindhi said.
Reports have indicated that healthcare in India is estimated to become a USD 372 billion industry by 2022.
Sindhi told Tech in Asia that the amount raised in Digi-Prex’s seed round is sufficient to finance the company’s planned expansion in India, but it will continue to evaluate other opportunities for further growth.
As such, he did not discount the possibility that the Hyderabad-headquartered startup would hold a series A round in the foreseeable future.
Digi-Prex is a graduate from Y Combinator’s Summer 2019 batch.
This article first appeared on Tech in Asia.