Online pharmacy Netmeds acquired the medicine delivery app for an undisclosed sum, providing an exit for Pluss backer Powerhouse Ventures.
India-based medicine and healthcare products delivery app Pluss has been sold to online pharmacy Netmeds for an undisclosed sum, Live Mint has reported.
The all-stock deal provides an exit for Powerhouse Ventures, a New Zealand-based company established in 2006 to commercialise innovations developed at the universities of Lincoln and Canterbury, and now invests in intellectual property created through scientific research.
Powerhouse took part in Pluss’s $1m pre-series A round in November 2015, investing alongside venture capital firm M&S partners and IDG Ventures India, the VC affiliate of IT media company International Data Group, which led the round.
Incorporated in May 2015, Pluss enables users to request delivery of medicines and health and wellness products by submitting an image of their prescription via an app on their mobile phones.
Pluss raised about $200,000 in seed funding from angel investors such as Kunal Bahl and Rohit Bansal, founders of online shopping platform Snapdeal. Anand Chandrasekaran, head of platform and partnerships for social media giant Facebook’s messenger service, was also a seed investor.
The Pluss acquisition will grow the Netmeds team to about 450 employees, and is intended to strengthen the company’s position in India’s fragmented $15bn retail pharmacy sector, where small shops comprise 95% of the market.
Pluss’s business and employees will be retained as part of Netmeds.
Powerhouse Ventures partnered Victoria University of Wellington’s commercialisation office Viclink in May 2016 to back startups based on the university’s research.
