New Delhi, Sep 6 : Tata Digital has initiated a new investment round of $40 million in the online ordering of medicines platform 1mg.This makes it the latest unicorn (with an estimated valuation of $1 billion or more) in the country.The United States now has 107 unicorns with 1mg being added to a growing list of unicorns of health-tech startups such as PharmEasy, Innovaccer, Curefit and Pristyn Care.
Tata Digital acquired 1mg in June of last year for the price of approximately $450 million.
In the latest round Tata Digital invested around $32 million to purchase 24,711 equity shares in 1 mg together with other investors such as KWE Beteiligungen AG, and HBM Healthcare Investments.
At present, 1mg claims to be able to fulfill 31 million orders per month, across 220,000 pin codes in the United States.
News portal for startups Entrackr was the first to announce the development of funding in 1mg.
The acquisition comes on of the of the debut of Tata Neu, the most popular super app launched by Tata Digital which aims to provide the company’s data-driven omnichannel experience to customers across various channels.
Tata Neu is a digital portal for customers to explore the many products and services provided by the Tatas.
But Tata Neu faces two difficulties in bringing customers onto the Neu platform, as per the brokerage house JM Financial Institutional Securities.
One is that the categories on Neu are not connected or all-encompassing.Therefore, Neu will not be an easy choice for people seeking a single-source shop.
Two, the inventory in categories like hotels, food, flights, and hotels is restricted to Tata’s brands, which will, consequently limit the customers’ choices and price exploration.
“We believe that Tata recognizes these issues and doesn’t expect the majority of customers to switch to Tata Neu immediately.
Even though Tata Neu does offer NeuPass as a reason for customers to use its platform, its primary principle is not to change the preferred shopping site of a customer,” the report said recently.
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