Dawaa Dost looks to raise ₹200-250 crore in maiden funding round

Dawaa Dost, an omnichannel generic medicine pharmacy network, is looking to raise ₹200-250 crore in its first institutional equity funding round and has appointed EY to manage the fundraising, according to two people familiar with the development.

“The deal is in early stages, and several growth funds will be sounded out as a part of the process,” one of the people cited above said.

The second person added that the funds will be used to expand the company’s reach and widen its omnichannel network.

Dawaa Dost declined to comment, while EY did not respond to Mint’s queries.

The development comes more than four years after the company raised debt financing from Grameen Impact, a social impact-focused non-banking financial company that invests in enterprises that demonstrate social responsibility and strong commercial potential.

Expansion bid

Founded in 2018 by Amit Choudhary (CEO), Yash Harlalka (COO), and Anirudh Batwara (CTO), the Jaipur-based omnichannel pharmacy chain focuses on making branded generic medicines highly affordable.

It serves about 19,000 pincodes and has over 80 offline pharmacies, according to its official website. It also utilizes a proprietary Kirana Tech model as an affiliate-assisted selling platform to expand affordable healthcare access across tier-II and tier-III cities in the country.

It is backed by several angel investors such as Kunal Shah (CRED), Arun Srinivas (Facebook, Ola), Saurabh Garg and Amit Agarwal (No Broker), A.N. Seshadri (Nalanda Capital), Amit Lodha (Fidelity International), Ashish Goel (Urban Ladder), Karthik Rajeshwaran (Flipkart), Suresh Mahadevan (Sure Cash), Amrish Rau (Pine Labs), Shankar Narayan (The Carlyle Group, Sanaka), among others.

Online reports indicate that the Indian pharmacy retail market is valued at about $27.3 billion to $42.9 billion, with the broader domestic pharmaceutical market expected to reach $130 billion by 2030.

Dawaa Dost competes with Trumeds, Tata1mg, PharmEasy and Apollo Pharmacy, among others.