The deal
sees the venture capital fund reap attractive returns within three years of its
investment into the e-pharmacy startup
Sistema Asia Fund today announced that it has
sold its stake in Netmeds, one of India’s leading online pharmaceutical
marketplace. The deal is part of the transaction in which Reliance, a Fortune
500 company and the largest private-sector corporation in India, will acquire
the e-pharmacy startup.
Sistema Asia Fund is a venture capital fund
sponsored by Sistema PJSFC, a publicly-traded diversified Russian holding
company. The fund focuses on investing in technology-enabled, consumer and
business-oriented startups in India and Southeast Asia - namely those with
exceptional teams, global scaling potential and solid revenue streams.
Sistema Asia Fund first invested in Netmeds in
2017 and this exit will gather attractive returns for the venture capital fund
as the online pharmaceutical startup grew four times its size over the past
three years. The deal also marks Sistema Asia Fund’s second exit and
monetisation, after selling its stake in Qwikcilver in March 2019. Sistema Asia
Fund is in the process of doing a final close of its first fund this year at
US$120 million.
Andrey added “Reliance’s backing of Netmeds is
a strong endorsement of our investment philosophy, which is to optimise our
investors' money into promising projects in India’s fast-growing technology
market. We are confident that Reliance’s entry will accelerate Netmeds’ growth
and help the startup establish itself as the leader in the online pharmacy
sector. We want to wish Netmeds continued successful growth and realise its
fullest potential with Reliance.”
Founded by Pradeep Dadha in 2010, Netmeds is
one of India's leading e-pharmacy brand driven to revolutionise India’s
healthcare sector. Currently, the startup serves over 4 million customers
nationwide, enabling them to purchase medicine online, sign up for monthly
pharmaceutical subscriptions, book lab tests, organise health checkups and
consult verified doctors online. The company’s services saw an especially high
demand during the COVID-19 pandemic, such as their delivery service which
supplied medicine to patients in over 14,000 regions across India.
Currently,
following its exit from Netmeds, Sistema Asia Fund is an investor in eight
companies, including Licious (a direct-to-consumer meat and seafood brand),
Rebel Foods (a multi-brand full stack online food-on-demand app), Uniphore (a
conversational AI technology company), Lendingkart Technologies (an online
financing company assisting SMEs with financing working capital for SMEs),
HealthifyMe (a health and fitness mobile app), Seclore (an enterprise data
security company) and Kissht (a consumer lending FinTech platform).
New Delhi,
August 19, 2020
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