On March 13, Medigo - a Vietnamese startup operating in the field of healthtech (medical technology) with the mainstay being a health consulting application, supporting 24/7 medicine delivery service. and home testing service... announced the successful raising of 2 million USD in Series A capital raising round.
The deal was led by East Ventures investment fund and two other funds, Pavilion Capital and Touchstone Partners. With this investment, Medigo said it will focus on developing and expanding the existing health care ecosystem.
Over the past three years, Medigo has grown to over 500,000 users by providing a 24/7 on-demand medication delivery service by connecting users with nearby pharmacies and delivering medications within 20 minutes.
This startup currently has about 1,000 pharmaceutical partners in Hanoi, Da Nang and Ho Chi Minh City - the three largest cities in Vietnam; will also begin expanding to other cities such as Binh Duong, Vung Tau or Hai Phong this year.
Previously, on February 14, BuyMed - a medical care startup operating the Thuocsi.vn platform, distributing pharmaceuticals directly according to the B2B model, also announced successfully raising capital of 33.5 million USD for the round. My Series B.
This funding round was led by UOB Venture Management. Along with that are two investors who have accompanied BuyMed from the series A round: Smilegate Investment and Cocoon Capital.
From the first warehouse built in Ho Chi Minh City, BuyMed has now also expanded its warehouses in Hanoi and Binh Duong with a total area of 18,000m2 to ensure the most convenient order processing process, serving customers. for more than 30,000 customers nationwide, including more than 17,000 customers who place regular orders each month.
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Medigo application on smartphones. |
In 2022, this market also witnessed many famous deals right from the beginning of the year such as: EastBridge Partners - a large Korean investment group with a capital scale of 1 billion USD completed a 30 million USD investment in USM Healthcare. in February. USM Healthcare is the sole developer and manufacturer of coronary stents in Vietnam, along with balloon catheters and medical supplies.
Next, in early March 2022, Jio Health - another startup in the Vietnamese healthcare sector announced the completion of a Series B capital call worth 20 million USD by Heritas Capital investment fund, headquartered in Vietnam. Singapore leads and investors Fuchsia Ventures, Kasikorn Bank Group, Monk's Hill Ventures. Through the Jio Health application on smartphones, this platform helps support doctors and nurses to examine and care for patients anytime, anywhere more conveniently.
At the same time, POC Pharma - this startup successfully raised 10.3 million USD in Series A round led by Alven fund, along with Picus Capital, FEBE Ventures and FJ Labs. The new capital will be used by POC Pharma to accelerate the implementation of digital marketing solutions for the pharmaceutical industry, while expanding the market to countries in the region...
Both competitive and cooperative
Economic development, people's increasing income, along with the aging population and increased health awareness have created great space for health care services and quality medicine. quality, "smarter" that is currently not fully met.
If the COVID-19 pandemic is said to be a boost to digital transformation, then along with education or e-commerce - healthcare is one of the industries that can see the impact of this transformation most clearly. In particular, healthtech has become a new investment focus, as the demand for online health care services is increasing due to convenience and the habit of limiting direct contact is still partly maintained after the epidemic.
It can be said that, after more than 3 years since the COVID-19 pandemic appeared, the healthtech field from potential has become a "gold mine" for startups in Southeast Asia and in Vietnam.
These startups serve many different segments of the market, but the most popular and growing are telehealth (remote consultation, medical examination) and online pharmacies. Among them, the most popular specialized applications for medical examination or combining medical examination, testing and selling drugs include: JioHealth, Med247, eDoctor, Medigo, POC Pharma, Doctor Anywhere, Jio Health...
By connecting with pharmacists for advice, associating with reputable pharmacies to sell drugs and deliver them to your door 24/7..., the emergence of these platforms has provided consumers with a variety of more diverse right to choose services and products.
However, experts say that the number of healthtech companies considered outstanding in Vietnam with depth, capital raising scale and diverse services is currently only counted on the fingers of one hand. Overall, this number of startups accounts for less than 2% of the total of more than 4,000 Asian startups in the same field. And to be able to develop and succeed like Fintech startups in the financial sector are doing, we still need quite long steps...
Not to mention, in Vietnam, the pharmaceutical retail market is highly fragmented, with more than 50,000 pharmacies, most of which are small businesses. According to market research firm BMI, this market's sales will increase from 7.7 billion USD in 2021 to 16.1 billion USD in 2026 with a compound growth rate of up to 11%.
With such potential, the pharmaceutical retail market is becoming more and more fragmented, as large businesses speed up opening chains, increasing coverage to gain large revenues, creating a modern, competitive pharmacy model. compete with each other and compete directly with traditional pharmaceutical retailers. In particular, the "three horses" race to open a pharmaceutical retail chain in recent times has been most prominent by three names: Long Chau, An Khang and Pharmacity...
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As above, in addition to traditional private pharmacies, pharmacies at hospitals or specialized pharmaceutical retail chains of "big companies", this market in recent years has also had more presence of pharmaceutical companies. Online medical platform combining consultation and health care.
And in this picture, digital health platforms compete directly with stores and retail chains; At the same time, it is also a partner when connecting customers with the nearest pharmacies through its application...
