LAHORE: Lahore-based health-tech startup emeds.pk has successfully secured $250,000 seed funding to scale its operations of providing healthcare essentials to customers.
The startup announced that the investment was raised from a London-based tech company, VM Interactive.
“We started only a few months back and our plan is to branch out within the next six to seven months and go for a bigger Series-A round. We are currently operating in Lahore only and plan to scale it all across Pakistan,” emeds.pk Chief Operating Officer (COO) Faizan Sajid told Profit.
The seed investment could not have come at a more opportune moment. The Covid-19 pandemic is already pushing consumers of all essential items towards safer and more convenient online shopping. That is besides the fact which Faizan highlights that the pandemic has exposed the already fragile health sector of Pakistan, and has highlighted the need for technology in the industry.
“Having worked with Vendor Managed Inventory (VMI) on health-tech projects in the UK, it became imperative for us to bring a system to Pakistan that we feel will make healthcare accessible to the masses. We feel that the confidence shown by VMI in us and our industry can be a stepping stone for improving our healthcare system,” Faizan added.
emeds.pk’s digital pharmacy is an expansion of the company’s business that also runs a retail pharmacy of the same name and holds inventory in a warehouse in Lahore.
“emeds.pk is bolstered by a team of qualified medical and pharmaceutical experts, user-friendly service and state of the art digital technology which will revolutionise the way medicines are acquired in Pakistan,” the company statement read.
VM Interactive’s COO Alex Kalavrezos stated, “Having seen the Pakistani tech industry grow leaps and bounds and with the government focused on taking the tech industry to another level, the chance to invest in the health-tech sector during this time was an opportunity not to be missed.”
Besides placing orders online, emeds.pk’s platform also offers the convenience of uploading a prescription. Their systems also offers users with a patient area which maintains a record of the user’s order history, prescriptions and refill reminders so that patients are never left without their medicines.
“Once a user has uploaded it’s prescription, it is examined by the licensed pharmacists for appropriate dosage, duration, and other points of validity, ensuring the safest way of ordering medicines,” the statement said.
Authorised and regulated by the Drug Regulatory Authority of Pakistan (DRAP), emeds already lists more than 8,000 prescription and non-prescription over-the-counter products. Besides medicines, emeds.pk offers personal care, wellbeing and fitness products and medical devices on its website.
emeds.pk’s direct competition is dawaai.pk which has been operational since January 2014. In March this year, dawaai.pk raised a seven-figure investment in a pre-Series-B round.
