SwipeRx boosts Series B to $37 Million to accelerate its B2B pharmacy platform across Southeast Asia

Singapore, 09 February 2023 – SwipeRx, Southeast Asia’s leading platform for pharmacies, today announced it has secured $10 million in fresh funds as part of a new Series B2 round. This round marks investments from marquee investors such as global pharma Sanofi’s Global Health Unit and Cercano Management (formerly Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen’s Vulcan Capital). Existing investors Susquehanna International Group (SIG), Johnson & Johnson Impact Ventures (a fund within the Johnson & Johnson Foundation) and Patamar Capital also participated.

The firm had announced the raise of its US$27 million Series B round in May 2022. The prior Series B round was led by Indonesia’s MDI Ventures with participation from other global investors, including the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Johnson & Johnson Impact Ventures, SIG and other existing investors.

With the fresh funds raised, SwipeRx will expand its Business to Business (B2B) commerce platform for the pharmaceutical industry in key markets. The firm will also use the proceeds to invest in specialised healthcare logistics and financing, further grow its pharmacy network in these key markets and strengthen its advanced data teams.

To-date, SwipeRx has more than 250,000 pharmacy professionals and 50,000 pharmacies on its digital network. It provides its users across the region with the digital tools and information they need to better serve patients and manage their pharmacies. The firm works with leading pharmaceutical companies, governments and NGOs to connect the entire pharmaceutical ecosystem.

Commenting on the successful fundraise, Farouk Meralli, Founder and CEO of SwipeRx, said, “From our inception, we have been obsessively focused on achieving our mission of improving the quality, availability and affordability of medicines across Southeast Asia. This new investment is a testament to our progress in achieving this mission while demonstrating rapid growth, strong economic fundamentals and market leadership. We look forward to accelerating our progress even further with this new injection of capital from these renowned investors.”

SwipeRx is the leading application for pharmacies in Southeast Asia combining the largest digital community for pharmacy professionals with an all-in-one digital B2B commerce capability. In its largest market, Indonesia, more than 12,000 retail pharmacies, amounting to a quarter of all pharmacies in the country, are on SwipeRx with over 8,000 of them also on the B2B commerce platform. In addition, SwipeRx recently launched a new point of sale (POS) and inventory management system which has grown rapidly now counting more than 1,000 pharmacies in the country on its platform.

“The Covid-19 pandemic has accelerated and amplified digital healthcare adoption in the region, however the healthcare system, including the pharmaceutical industry, is complex and fragmented. We strongly believe SwipeRx is a regional category leader in this B2B vertical, with digitization, collaboration, and transparency at their core. We see immense scale and potential in the problem they are addressing and are excited to back the team in their next phase of growth.” said MJ Yu, Managing Director of Cercano.

Jon Fairest, Head of the Sanofi Global Health Unit commented “We recognize the importance of investing in local entrepreneurial businesses that strengthen and support sustainable healthcare delivery and improve outcomes. SwipeRx has proven its ability to drive impact by empowering even the most remote pharmacies to improve the care delivered to patients. We are very excited to play a role in SwipeRx’s scale-up journey as investor and partner through our Impact Fund, focusing on the model replicability in lower income countries, such as Cambodia.”