Vietnamese e-pharmacy startup bags $1m in seed funding

Ha Le, a software developer who returned home to Vietnam after working for several years in Germany, found out about problems with the Vietnamese healthcare sector the hard way.

“One night, when my daughter was having a fever, I struggled to look for pharmacies that were still open to find medicine for her,” he said in a statement.

The Medigo app / Photo credit: Medigo

That’s why Le founded Medigo in 2019, a startup that helps users order medicine from trusted pharmacies within their vicinity.

Since then, it has partnered with over 200 medical institutions in Ho Chi Minh City, Hanoi, and Da Nang. The company said that in the past six months, it saw its gross merchandise value (GMV) increase 8x. Medigo currently has over 200,000 users on its platform.

People in Vietnam still need to go to pharmacies to get their own medicine, according to Le. And many of those who live in the rural areas still have to go to pharmacies in urban centers. There are more than 30,000 independent pharmacies across the country, but the difference in quality between them may vary.

Recently, Medigo raised a US$1 million seed funding from Touchstone Partners, an early-stage Vietnam-focused venture capital firm that launched its inaugural US$50 million fund earlier this year.

See also: Vietnam leads Southeast Asia in healthcare spending, report says

Medigo plans to expand its service to telemedicine and other heathcare services amid growing healthcare spending in Vietnam, which is expected to reach US$22.7 billion this year.

Recently, pharmarceutical startup BuyMed, or known locally as Thuocsi, also announced its US$9 million series A led by South Korea’s Smilegate Investment.