A delivery man for thuocsi.vn making a delivery to a pharmacy customer in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.- Thuocsi.vn has connected over 2,000 healthcare providers with verified suppliers to transform the current inefficient distribution system.
- The online marketplace provides real-time prices, quality service and fast delivery for all pharma supplies.
HO CHI MINH – September 26, 2019 — BuyMed, the Vietnamese startup behind award-winning, pharma distribution marketplace Thuocsi.vn – announced today a USD 500,000 seed financing round led by Cocoon Capital and VietCapital Ventures, two venture capital funds based in Singapore and Vietnam respectively.
BuyMed was founded in 2018 to simplify healthcare distribution in Vietnam and the rest of Southeast Asia, addressing the pharmaceutical market estimated at USD8 billion by 2020. Doctors, pharmacists and hospitals in Vietnam waste a lot of time researching and sourcing for drugs in an inefficient system that ultimately leads to less time caring for patients. Thuocsi.vn, a business-to-business (B2B) marketplace, connects healthcare practices with a number of verified, licensed distributors, providing automatic matching of orders and end-to-end logistics. With an emphasis on transparency, the platform also provides real-time pricing, detailed information on active ingredients in the various products and a communications network used for important updates like product recalls.
“The healthcare industry in Southeast Asia is highly fragmented and as a result, almost 80% of pharmacies resort to purchasing from unlicensed agents. This increases the risk of counterfeit and simply wrong drugs being delivered. We feel it is a waste of resources that a pharmacist on average spends one full day per week ordering supplies. Thuocsi.vn reduces this to minutes,” said CEO and co-founder of BuyMed, Peter Nguyen.
Hoang Nguyen, Chief Product Officer and co-founder of BuyMed added: “With the growing penetration of smartphones and familiarity with e-commerce, best-practice business models can be implemented in emerging markets like Vietnam within a fraction of the time by utilising technology and e-commerce marketplaces. Furthermore, consumers and patients will receive higher quality healthcare at a more affordable price which is significant in developing countries where the GDP per capita is lower and out-of-pocket healthcare expenditure remains high.”
Awarded ‘Best startup’ at Seedstars Vietnam 2018, the young company already serves over 2,000 pharmacies, clinics and hospitals across the country with a target to double this number within the next 6 months. BuyMed also plans to develop a country-wide logistics network so that orders can be delivered cost-effectively to healthcare practices in even the most remote villages in Vietnam.
Over 100 partnerships with manufacturers, brands and distributors ensure that variety products received by end users are verified, safe, and timely for consumption. Thuocsi.vn aims to add other healthcare verticals including cosmetics, medical devices, supplements, and medical services to become a one-stop marketplace for healthcare practices in emerging markets.
“Peter and his very experienced founder team impressed us with their clearly stated goal of providing a cost-effective and safe platform to supply pharmaceuticals. We see BuyMed as a great example of how e-commerce can transform traditional business models, bringing lower prices to consumers as well as better margins to sellers”, said Will Klippgen, Managing Partner at Cocoon Capital. Mr. Klippgen recently joined BuyMed’s board of directors.