1mg is an online medicine marketplace for medicines Launched in 2013. The company sells all kind of medicines at the discounted rates from its mobile application and Website. 1mg crossed more than 5 million app downloads and more than 3 million monthly visitors over the platform.
The website was started as HealthKartPlus a platform for users to have all the information about the medicines. The platform became so popular and got a huge response from the public and users asked the company to start the delivery of the medicines too. Thus 1mg was started.
1mg Founders:
1mg was founded by Prashant Tandon, Gaurav Agarwal, and Vikas Chauhan in 2013.
Prashant Tandon:
Prashant went to IIT-Delhi for his Bachelor’s degree in Technology and Stanford University for his business studies. He worked at McKinsey & Co., Hindustan Lever Ltd., and MapMyIndia before co-founding 1mg.
Gaurav Agarwal:
Gaurav Aggarwal second co-founder of 1mg is also an IIT-Delhi pass out. Prior to 1mg, he worked at Farmville- Zynga, and Netapp.
Vikas Chauhan:
Vikas completed his business studies from Somaiya college and also the founder of Fresh ‘n’ Daily a marketplace for home delivery of everyday us home products like Grofers and BigBasket.
The idea of 1mg:
People shop for clothes, shoes, food, grocery, and other items online, then why not can they buy medicines online? People prefer more to online now.The idea was to make all the medicines available and deal with the cost of the medicines. Soon investors shown interest in their idea and the company raised 6 million dollars of funding to implement the idea and improve the technology.
1mg Funding:
The company has raised around 37 million dollars in two years from 6 investors in 5 rounds
Series A: It the first round 1mg raised 6 million dollars from Intel Capital, Omidyar Network, and Sequoia Capital.
Series B: In Series B round held in April 2016 1mg raised 16 million dollars existing investors Omidyar Network and Sequoia Capital and new investor Maverick Capitals.
Series C: In this round of funding company raised 15 million dollars from HBM Healthcare Investments AG, Sequoia Capital, and Maverick Capitals.
Journey of 1mg:
1mg has come a long way since its launch in 2013 the company claims of more than 5 million app downloads and more than 3 million monthly visitors over the platform. The company has grown by 600% over the last year in terms of app downloads and user engagement.
The most number of users has been seen from metro cities like Delhi, Pune, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Kolkata, Hyderabad, Ahmedabad, Chennai, Lucknow, Indore, Chandigarh, Jaipur etc.
1mg Business Model:
1mg provides services like diagnostics, medicine, preventive healthcare and online Q&A to its users. Apart from this, they also have native ads on their platforms for pharma companies. In the past one year, The company has expanded its pharmacies to 600 cities and also expanded their product range to include homeopathy and Ayurveda range. The company competes with the likes of Netmeds and Practo, across segments.
1mg Marketing Strategies:
The company used its app to spread information on medicines. They are using push notifications and emails to expand and let people know that they are live in their city. The company also uses offline advertisements depending on the city. They use newspaper advertisement and health camps to spread information. But a majority of their marketing is digital.
