There’s a saying among venture-funded startups, “Fake it till you make it.” It means you do whatever it takes to grow, win market share, and raise money from investors until you hopefully reach a scale where you become profitable, go public or become so big that you’re someone else’s problem.
The primary tool startup founders use to run this brutal race is narrative storytelling. This isn’t always a bad thing, since most startups' and founders’ ambitions run way ahead of their reality. Narratives are thus akin to a post-dated cheque to investors (and employees). “We will be this in the future. You can take our word for it. But we’ll need your money (or talent) to make this happen.”
For PharmEasy, India’s most valuable healthtech startup, the saying is more like, “Buy it till you make it.”
As it nears its “make it” moment—a rumoured $1 billion IPO that will value it around $8-9 billion—the path it took says a lot about it.
A series of ambitious mergers and acquisitions that started in mid-2019 have rapidly transformed what was then one of India’s e-pharmacies into a gargantuan player that also does pharma distribution, diagnostics, teleconsultation, and even B2B hospital supplies.
At each stage, as it swallowed more companies and raised more money, its narrative changed. From e-pharmacies to pharma distribution to now, “integrated health”.
But as we Multimedia Studio argue in today’s incredibly well-analysed articles, piling on everything on the menu at a buffet could sometimes lead to indigestion. Pharmeasy now operates in a sector where its rivals are not to be trifled with—Reliance Industries and Tata Group. It must now show investors how it plans to integrate and digest the acquisitions it has made.. Yusuf Bhandarkar www.multimediastudio.net
