The company has raised around $204 million (more than Rs 1,505 crore) in primary funding from Singapore’s Amansa Capital,Blackstone-backed hedge fund ApaH Capital, US hedge fund Janus Henderson, OrbiMed, Steadview Capital, Abu Dhabi’s sovereign wealth fund ADQ, hedge fund Neuberger Berman and London’s Sanne Group, the documents showed.
Sources told ET that PharmEasy parent API Holdings has also closed a $130-$140 millionsecondary share sale
.
About 20 senior employees have bought shares worth $5 million as part of the secondary sale, indicating bullishness over the IPO.
Early investors and angel investors have sold their stakes in the firm, while IIFL’s tech fund has also picked up shares, the sources added.
PharmEasy founders, too, have bought shares worth around $40 million in the secondary sale, people briefed on the matter said.
The above-mentioned investors have also picked up secondary shares besides their primary investment, the people added.
In a secondary share sale, existing investors sell their shares to new investors and the money does not flow into the company coffers. Details of the secondary share sale were, however, not available in the regulatory filings.
This is the third major financing round that the company has closed, taking the total to $1 billion including secondary funding in the calendar year so far, amid record amounts of capital being pumped into startups leading the digital economy.
Excluding the latest fundraise, it has mopped up about $650 million since April, when the
e-pharmacy entered the unicorn club at a valuation of $1.5 billion.
According to an IVCA-Preqin report, venture capital investment in startups was at a record high of $26 billion as of October 7.
Following the pre-IPO round, API Holdings’ post-money valuation has jumped to $5.6 billion, sources added. PharmEasy was
valued at $4 billion after it acquired diagnostics chain Thyrocare for over $600 million in June.
ET reported exclusively on October 4 and September 14 that several of the above-mentioned
investors were in the final stages of backing the company and that it
planned to close a secondary share sale before going public.
ET also reported that
PharmEasy was planning to file its DRHP this month.
“They (PharmEasy) are aiming to file DRHP this month still or around Diwali since the funding round has now closed,” a person aware of the company’s thinking said.
PharmEasy’s founders, Siddharth Shah, Dhaval Shah, Dhramil Sheth, Harsh Parekh and Hardik Dedhia, have also been given new stock options ahead of the IPO, a growing practice among startups, in a significant wealth creation opportunity for founders before a public market debut.
Each founder has been given 9,987 stock options under its employee stock ownership plan (Esop), the documents showed.
Siddharth Shah, also its chief executive, was not immediately available for comment on Sunday.
Leading startups across the world have also undertaken similar exercises to reward founders.
ET reported last month that Paytm founder
Vijay Shekhar Sharma was granted a significant amount of new stock options as the fintech firm races to make its Dalal Street debut before Diwali.
According to the filings, Amansa Capital has put almost Rs 370 crore in the round, while Sanne Group has invested over Rs 443 crore. Steadview Capital has chipped in Rs 110 crore.
Janus Henderson-managed funds have invested close to Rs 100 crore, while ADQ has put around Rs 74 crore, the filings showed. New York-based Neuberger Berman and others have invested the rest of the money.
PharmEasy has also
added five new independent directors to its 12-strong board and received board approval to convert itself into a public company from a private entity.
In September, the Mumbai-based company
acquired cloud-based hospital supply chain management startup Aknamed in a $180-$190 million deal, positioning itself as a broader digital healthcare platform.
