Diagnosis and stem cell bank LifeWell (the merged entity of mFine and LifeCell International’s diagnostic business) is raising Rs 184 crore (approximately $22 million) in what appears to be a pre-IPO round led by existing backer OrbiMed. This will be the first round of investment for the Chennai-based company this year.
The board at LifeWell has passed a special resolution to issue 43,18,865 compulsory convertible preference to issue Rs 426.71 each to raise to Rs 184 crore, as per the company’s regulatory filing accessed from the Registrar of Companies (RoC) shows.
OrbiMed will inject Rs 150 crore while Cellution Biostorage will pump Rs 30 crore in LifeWell. Individuals including S. Vinod Kumar, Sanjay Singh Kumar Jain, Siremal Kothjari, and others will also invest in this round.
The allotment was done on partly paid-up capital via the right basis issue which means 25% of the new round has already been injected. The rest of the amount will come as decided by the board.
In July 2022, healthcare platform mFine announced its merger with LifeCell’s diagnostics business. At that time, the duo claimed to have a combined user base of more than six million. The combined entity had set a target to serve more than 50 million users by 2026.
As a part of the merger, the combined entity also scooped up $80 million in funding from OrbiMed. Before that, mFine had managed to raise $75 million until its Series C round. The merger came soon after mass firings at mFine in which more than 50% of its workforce were asked to leave.
mFine and LifeCell’s diagnostic business was one of the notable consolidations in the digital healthcare space since January 2020. Earlier, DocsApp was merged with MediBuddy while Pristyn Care acquired Lybrate. All of these were distressed sales. The list also includes the acquisitions of ThyroCare, Medlife and Aknamed by PharmEasy while Reliance took over NetMeds.
