Medikabazaar plans to raise USD 250-300M in 2024

Medical technology start-up Medikabazaar plans to raise an additional $250 to $300 million in funding during the upcoming calendar year of 2024 to fuel its expansion plans, according to a top company executive.

Speaking to businessline about the company’s hyper-growth business model, Vivek Tiwari, Founder and CEO, said that there is a constant need for growth capital.

“Our planned fundraise in 2024 will be primarily an equity raise. Moreover, we anticipate this round to be one of the most substantial in the health tech sector, likely backed by prominent investors or private equity firms,” the CEO noted. Moreover, it has also witnessed increasing interest from sovereign funds and prominent private equity firms.

To date, it has raised $165 million through a combination of debt and equity financing from institutional investors, including Lighthouse India, British International Investments, Creaegis, Health Quad, Ackermans, Toppan Printing, and others.

Providing further insight into the allocation strategy for the impending funding, he explained that their main objective is to explore opportunities in both the domestic and international markets, with a keen eye on select inorganic growth prospects.

Expansion
Furthermore, the start-up has initiated efforts to establish its presence internationally, targeting markets such as Dubai, Singapore, and China. Tiwari projected, “By year-end, we anticipate operating in six markets, excluding India, comprising three Middle Eastern and three African countries,” the CEO said.

Medikabazaar operates across various verticals, encompassing medical supplies through a B2B platform, Vizi – an AI-ML-powered smart procurement tool, Freedom – streamlining medical financing, Simplified MBGO – transforming medical supply logistics, VPO model, and MBARC – asset management, recycling, and care.

With regard to the growth of the company in the last few years, he said, “Today, we don’t require funds to run our day-to-day operations as the revenues have been growing steadily.” According to consolidated financial statements filed with the Registrar of Companies, in FY22, the company reported an operating gross revenue of Rs 1,552.53 crore, a substantial increase from Rs 564.7 crore in FY21.

Growth drivers
Tiwari highlighted that the pivotal drivers of this growth have been the VPO model and the equipment aggregation model. Additionally, in line with the growing pharmaceutical sector in the country, Medikabazaar plans to integrate pharmaceuticals into its business supply chain with the addition of pharmaceutical ingredients (API).

Speaking about the current market landscape for medical equipment and devices, encompassing overall equipment and consumable device volumes, which stand at approximately $10 billion, he mentioned, “Our market share represents about 6–7 percent of the entire market opportunity.”

The online B2B marketplace for medical devices and supplies was founded in 2014 and offers more than 1 lakh products and is presently serving more than 15,000 medical centres and over 80,000 independent doctors and clinics. The Hindu BusinessLine