Biddano Pvt Ltd, a business-to-business healthcare product distribution platform, has raised Rs 5 crore (around $678,000) in a pre-Series A funding.
The round in Pune-based Biddano has been led by startup incubator and accelerator Venture Catalysts, with participation from investors including LetsVenture, the startup said in a statement.
Biddano was set up in 2016 by Talha Shaikh and Ashok Yadav. The company says its platform aims to bridge supply-chain gaps between distributors and chemists through a plug-and-expand model.
This technology, the company says, allows distributors to manage their demand and supply while expanding their own geographical reach. It also lets chemists and hospitals enable orders from multiple distributors and consolidate them to pharmacy-specific deliveries.
Shaikh said the investment from Venture Catalysts and LetsVenture was proof of confidence in the business model and technology platform.
“We firmly believe that, with this approach, it [Biddano] is well-poised to capitalise on a massive market opportunity not only in the healthcare space but also other product categories that involve channel sales,” Venture Catalysts co-founder and president Apoorva Ranjan Sharma said.
Biddano claims its fulfilment infrastructure allows various stakeholders in the healthcare supply chain to procure medicines in less than three hours of placing an order.
Venture Catalysts
The startup incubator and accelerator was set up in 2015 by Sharma, Anuj Golecha, Anil Jain and Gaurav Jain. It invests between $250,000 and $1.5 million in early-stage startups and provides networking and mentoring to its portfolio companies.
It has made several bets despite the disruption caused by the coronavirus pandemic. At the start of September, it hit the first close of its maiden vehicle – the 9Unicorns Accelerator Fund – at Rs 100 crore (around $13.7 million).
Some of its bets this year include impact and artisans-focussed Rare Planet Handicrafts, influencer marketing platform ClanConnect.ai, chit-fund platform The Money Club, herbal products brand Green Cure, robotics startup Peppermint, blue-collar-focussed recruitment platform MyKaam, and dietary supplement brand Power Gummies.
Venture Catalysts said its network of high-net-worth individual investors had struck 60 investment deals and 27 exit transactions in 2019. Last year marked the largest number of exits since its inception in 2015; it had made only three portfolio exits in 2018 and none prior to that.
To discuss the business opportunity and the challenges in the healthcare sector, VCCircle is organising the Healthcare Investment Summit 2020—a virtual event—on December 11. Check out the details and register click here https://healthcare.vccevents.com/