Tele-health platform Truemeds raises $22 million in funding led by WestBridge Capital

Existing investors including InfoEdge Ventures, Asha Impact and IAN Fund also participated in the funding round.

Last year, Truemeds raised $5 million (Rs 36.4 crore) in its Series A round.

The company offers subscription-like services for chronic patients.

It said it planned to utilize the funds to accelerate growth in the untapped domestic market and expand its coverage across the country.

Founded by Akshat Nayyar and Kunal Wani, Truemeds focuses on recommending value alternative brands to chronic patients.

Discover the stories of your interest

The Mumbai-based startup provides free delivery of the suggested brands.

It has so far served more than 500,000 customers.

It is now looking to expand operations beyond Maharashtra.

“In an effort to improve the customer experience and reach, the company plans to triple its fulfilment centres across the country in the next six months,” Truemeds said in a statement.

The company is currently fulfilling more than 100,000 orders each month and growing rapidly, it said.

“India is one of the very few markets where we have pseudo-categorisation of medicines in branded and generic-generic to create different price tiers between them. 95% of the drugs sold in India are off patent (thus technically generics). There is absolutely no difference in the scientific composition of generics and branded drugs,” Nayyar, also its chief executive, said.

The Indian generic-generic market is growing at 1.5 times the overall pharmaceutical market and following the US landscape where the generics prescription share moved from 40% in 2005 to over 85% in 2019, he added.

“We are excited to partner with Truemeds as they create value for patients by delivering high quality drugs at extremely affordable prices at the patients’ doorstep,” said Sandeep Singhal, managing director, WestBridge Capital.

According to the company, over 250 million chronic patients in India spend 15-20% of their family income on medicines. An average Truemeds customer saves around 47% on medicine bills and this can go as high as 70%.

“Truemeds is carving out a good place for itself in the Indian pharma market with its simple but powerful proposition of reducing costs of medicine bills,” said Amit Behl, partner, InfoEdge Ventures. “Seldom do we witness an ecommerce biz (business) model operating with viable economics while growing rapidly and delivering attractive savings for customers.”