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Bengaluru-based online pharmacy company Medlife International has acquired another startup, EClinic24/7, in the same segment for an undisclosed amount.
With the acquisition, Medlife, which so far provided telephonic consultation, will now have chat and video-based doctor consultation also. It will also help add about 1,000 more doctors to Medlife's base of 3,600 doctors. The plan is to add about 10,000 doctors in the next one year.
The acquisition willhelp boost the company’s annual turnover to about ₹830 crore for FY 19, said its founder and CEO, Tushar Kumar. The revenues for FY 18 stood at ₹300 crore.
“We are growing at a much faster rate because of the services that we provide. We have four different lines of revenue at present including online diagnostics services, corporate tie-ups. The acquisition will help us offer an enhanced and seamless healthcare experience in e-consultation on the Medlife platform for both patients and doctors which will also boost our revenues,” Kumar said adding that acquisition will help boost revenue contribution from e-consultation at 5 to 10 per cent of its overall business in the near future. Currently, about 80 per cent of the revenue comes from online medicine sales.
Kumar said that Medlife, which is backed by the family office of Alkem Laboratories, is the largest player in the online space with a 35 per cent market share. Other players in the segment are Pharmeasy, Netmeds, 1mg and Practo among others.
Started in 2014 by Kumar and Prashant Singh, Medlife has received about $30 million from Alkem Laboratories’s Family Office. Kumar said that he and the co-founder have pumped in $20 million of personal funds into the business and the company is not seeking any VC and PE funding at this moment.
“We are self sufficient and the business will start making money from March next year. Post that we are planning to invest close to $100 million in expansion and promotions,” he said adding that it currently has fulfilment centres in 16 cities.
Medlife initially started as an online drug delivery platform and then diversified into online doctor consultation and laboratory services. The company has one diagnostic lab in Bengaluru and by end of December it plans to have one each in Mumbai and Delhi.
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