1000Farmacie, Healthware Ventures portfolio company, secures $15M Series A Round
1000Farmacie, a portfolio company of Healthware Ventures, has announced one of the largest Series A rounds in Italy, amounting to 15 million dollars.
Healthware Ventures, the corporate VC of the Healthware Group, has participated in the Series A after co-leading the Seed round and Healthware CEO, Roberto Ascione, will stay Chairman of the Board of Directors.
The Series A round was led by P101 SGR – through its second fund P102 and ITALIA 500 (a venture capital fund created by Azimut Libera Impresa sgr and managed by P101) – and by the Swiss-based investment company HBM Healthcare Investments.
Switzerland-based family office Corisol Holding, Club degli Investitori (which invested through Ersel group’s Simon Fiduciaria), IAG, LIFTT, and Healthware Ventures (that invested in the seed round), also took part in this Series A round.
The start-up company had previously closed a USD 1.7M seed round in April 2020 and has raised around USD 17 million to date.
Founded in March 2020 by CEO Nicolò Petrone, alongside Mohamed Younes (COO) and Alberto Marchetti (CMO), 1000Farmacie has become in two years only the pharmacy marketplace that brings together the best Italian pharmacies on an online platform, offering customers a wide choice of products, fast delivery, and value for money.
With a network of over 100 independent pharmacies located in major Italian cities and 95,000 products for sale, 1000Farmacie has now reached more than 250,000 customers, with sales growing by 600% last year. The start-up collaborates with multiple pharma players, which use the platform to deliver medicines to patients more efficiently.
Healthware Ventures has believed in 1000Farmacie from the very beginning, investing in the seed stage and supporting its growth through both cash investment and venture studio activities, including media and technology support.
"1000Farmacie has immediately demonstrated its growth potential combined with a relevant expertise to actively contribute to the digital transformation of the Italian pharmaceutical industry. This led us to continue to invest in the company and we are confident that, thanks to a remarkably talented team, 1000Farmacie will be leading the Italian e-pharmacy sector by providing users with a more integrated digital health experience”, said Roberto Ascione, CEO at Healthware Group and President of Healthware Ventures.
The company will use these funds to expand the business and its last-mile delivery service. 1000Farmacie will build out its widespread network of partnerships with local pharmacies. This business model was inspired by US startup PillPack, which was acquired by Amazon in 2018. Furthermore, 1000Farmacie aims at supporting patients by integrating additional services within its digital healthcare platform by 2023.
"Thanks to this financing round we will be able to significantly expand the range of services improving the overall shopping experience. 1000Farmacie’s technology brings together the best performing independent pharmacies onto a single platform, combining the largest selection of products with rapid delivery. 1000Farmacie excels at customer satisfaction by partnering only with pharmacies that share its customer-centric mindset", stated Nicolò Petrone, CEO of 1000Farmacie.
1000Farmacie is part of the growing e-pharmacy and digital healthcare market that has a potential value of EUR 180 billion in Europe, however, its online penetration is still close to zero (source: Sempora). It is in fact a market strongly linked to offline sales (over 200,000 products have been sold in more than 50,000 brick-and-mortar stores in Europe), and with a rather low presence of digital marketplaces. In Italy in particular, the potential for development is enormous: in fact, the penetration rate of the e-pharmacy sector is growing fast: between 2018 and 2020 it grew by three times.
