After Swiggy, Ola and a few other hyper-funded companies, online drug marketplace PharmEasy has seen its valuation cut to $2.8 billion. Its investor and global asset management company Janus Henderson has reduced the unicorn’s valuation by nearly 50%.
The-Mumbai-based company valuation was cut by its investor for the second time in a row this year. Neuberger Berman reduced PharmEasy’s valuation by 21.4% to $4.4 billion as of February 2023. ET was first to report the development citing SEC filings.
The downmark season began early this year and several companies such as Byju’s, Ola and Pine Labs’s valuation were reduced by their backers. Although, these markdowns mean nothing until they raise new money at lower valuation (down-round).
Vanguard Group reduced Ola’s valuation by 35% to $4.8 billion from its peak value of $7.4 billion. Invesco, which led Swiggy’s last round at a $10.7 billion valuation in January 2022, nearly halved the valuation to $5.5 billion whereas BlackRock reduced Slashed Byju’s worth to $11.5 billion from $22 billion.
In August last year, PharmEasy decided to postpone its plans to launch an IPO amidst challenging market conditions. While the company has been trying to raise new capital ever since it delayed its listing plans, the company became operationally profitable and recorded a positive EBITDA of around Rs 14 crore in April.
PharmEasy has raised over a billion dollars to date including a $217 million worth round at over $5.5 billion valuation in October last year. The company turned unicorn in April 2021 after raising a $350 million round led by Prosus and TPG Growth.
As per Fintrackr’s analysis, PharmEasy’s gross revenue spiked 2.5X to Rs 5,729 crore during FY22 as compared to Rs 2,335 crore in FY21. Meanwhile, its losses ballooned 4.3X to Rs 2,731 crore in FY22 from Rs 641 crore in the preceding fiscal year (FY21).
According to experts tracking startup space, more companies [Unicorns] will be marked down by their investors in coming months. “Most startups were overvalued during the boom cycle of 2020-2021. However, tables have turned now and startups without strong fundamentals will face such a valuation cut for sure,” said one of the analysts requesting anonymity with a big four firms.
