About two years ago, just when the first wave of the Covid-19 pandemic sparked a spike in demand for deliveries by online pharmacy players, 1mg Technologies hit the market to raise a new round of funding. 

When it started out, 1mg was not meant to be an online pharma company. At least, that was not founder Prashant Tandon’s and then co-founder Sameer Maheshwari’s original business idea back in 2011. The startup was an offshoot of e-commerce platform Healthkart, best known for selling supplements. It was known as Healthkartplus – an online marketplace for health devices, personal care, fitness and nutrition supplements, sports nutrition, eye-care and so on, having tie-ups with top distributors and retailers in different cities. 

But in 2015, Tandon, a McKinsey consultant with an MBA from Stanford, decided to demerge the business.