SwipeRx Closes Series B Funding 396 Billion Rupiah, Ready to Accelerate Its Business

SwipeRx (formerly mClinica Pharmacy Solutions) announced a series B funding of $27 million or IDR 396 billion in equity and loans.

The funding was led by MDI Ventures and participation from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Johnson & Johnson Impact Ventures, Susquehanna International Group (SIG), and a number of former investors.

This release also confirms our news in December 2021. MDI itself has supported mClinica since their initial funding in 2014, then entered into follow-up funding in 2017.

While SwipeRx services have also debuted in Indonesia since 2017. As stated by SwipeRx Founder & CEO Farouk Meralli, the fresh funds obtained will be used to accelerate their business growth in Southeast Asia, especially Indonesia.

SwipeRx plans to add to its network of pharmacies, expand health logistics services to meet B2B needs, and increase the number of new talents. In addition, SwipeRx is also focused on expanding its community base and stock procurement solutions for pharmacies in Southeast Asia.

“We want to realize our vision of building the largest pharmaceutical network in Southeast Asia in recent years. This funding strengthens our commitment to disrupt and support the highly segmented pharmaceutical sector in order to improve public health services,” said Meralli in an official statement.

SwipeRx Has Great Potential

Meanwhile, CEO of MDI Ventures Donald Wihardja added that SwipeRx has great potential to be able to answer challenges in the pharmaceutical industry by connecting various entrepreneurs/pharmacy owners in one platform.

“Pharmaceutical companies can take advantage of the retail purchasing system, national standard logistics capacity, business financing options, and an integrated B2B platform as the advantages of SwipeRx services,” he said.

SwipeRx is a Singapore-based pharmaceutical platform founded by Farouk Meralli, a veteran in the public health and pharmaceutical industry. With his experience, Meralli seeks to bring SwipeRx as the largest all-in-one B2B commerce application and community of pharmacists in Southeast Asia.

SwipeRx brings features to increase pharmacy management capacity and make it a one-stop shop for various purposes, from education, purchasing, to inventory financing.

This service allows small pharmacy owners to increase the capacity, availability and affordability of drugs, to access business funding options.

Through online forums, SwipeRx users can connect to communicate with each other as well as obtain education and information about medicines through the platform. In addition, users can also join the purchasing network to procure pharmacy stock.

Pharmacy Digitization

SwipeRx seeks to overcome challenges in the pharmaceutical industry, one of which is the fragmentation in which many small pharmacies have not been digitized and joined into a wider network.

Farouk Meralli said that digitalization in the pharmaceutical industry is needed to increase access to healthcare for consumers, especially if you look at the scale of the market in Indonesia.

In addition, channel expansion in pharmaceutical products is important so that pharmacy owners can increase their business scale and financial performance. Currently, SwipeRx has recruited more than 235,000 professional pharmacist partners and partnered with 45,000 pharmacies in Southeast Asia.

In Indonesia, SwipeRX has more than 8000 retail pharmacy partners. As for 5000 of them recorded as having transacted on the B2B platform. Primarily, SwipeRx targets the pharmacy market (mom-and-pop store) that operates in silos and has not been digitized.

“Indonesia is SwipeRx’s largest market in Southeast Asia, where 70% of our total team comes from Indonesia. Currently, SwipeRx is experiencing rapid growth in Indonesia thanks to the acceleration in adding to the number of pharmacy partners. Our partners see the superior value of the solutions offered by SwipeRx and this can help them improve their business,” said Meralli.

Furthermore, he ensured that SwipeRx cooperated with the Ministry of Health, BPOM, and state-owned pharmaceutical companies, including Biofarma, Indofarma, Kimia Farma, and Phapros to enable SwipeRx to strengthen its pharmaceutical ecosystem in Indonesia.