Medlife raising Rs 400 Cr convertible debt from Prasid Uno Family Trust

Omnichannel pharmacy platform Medlife has reportedly been in conversation to raise about $150 million from SoftBank and Cipla. While these talks are yet to be materialised, the Bengaluru-based firm is raising Rs 400 crore from existing investor - Prasid Uno Family Trust.

Prasid Uno Trust will invest Rs 400 crore via debt with an option to convert into convertible redeemable preference shares, reveals RoC filings. This would be the second round of funding from the trust in less than six months.

Prasid Uno Trust has invested about Rs 118 crore in April this year. It’s worth noting that Medlife co-founders Tushar Kumar and Prashant Singh, are directly connected with the trust. Kumar is director and trustee for Parsid Trust while Singh’s wife Surabhi Singh is also one of the directors.

Almost a month ago, Prasid Uno Family Trust sold 36 lakh shares of Alkem for Rs 1,708.45 crore. Medlife had recently appointed former Myntra’s Chief Executive Officer Ananth Narayanan as its co-founder and CEO. Narayanan is also an angel investor in Medlife.

Filings further state that the company had borrowed about Rs 55 crore, with an option to be converted into equity shares, back in May and July. However, the company passed a superseding resolution allowing the Trust to convert the debt into optionally convertible preference share instead.

Currently, Medlife claims to be the most significant player in the online medicine ordering segment with 20,000 orders a day. It also claimed to have closed FY19 with Rs 1,000 crore in sales. 

Medlife also runs over 100 franchises stores across the country. To strengthen its offline play, the company also acquired medicine delivery startup Myra in an all-stock deal. The acquiree has been helping Medlife to setup franchise in 20 new cities. 

The Narayanan-led firm competes with Netmeds, 1mg and PharmEasy, Mfine among several others in online medicine ordering space while Appolo Pharmacy, MedPlus and SastaSundar are competition in the offline market.