Truemeds, a startup founded six years ago, has secured $85 million in a fresh funding round comprising $65 million in primary investments and $20 million in secondary financing, led by Accel with involvement from Peak XV Partners. TechCrunch initially disclosed Accel’s discussions to support Truemeds last year. Current investors WestBridge Capital and InfoEdge Ventures also took part.

The new funding has increased Truemeds’ valuation to more than $400 million, rising from $110 million in its previous round two years prior.

Established in 2019, Truemeds emerged in a market where India's online pharmacy sector was already saturated with significant competitors providing substantial discounts on branded generics. However, some of these companies found it challenging to maintain initial progress — for example, Prosus Ventures-supported PharmEasy experienced a decline in its valuation from a high of $5.6 billion to below $600 million, whereas 1mg was bought by Tata Digital, a division of the Tata Group. Rather than directly competing, the founders of Truemeds opted to concentrate on a more specialized area: generic pharmaceuticals.

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Truemeds co-founder Akshat Nayyar says, “There’s no method to inform the user about more affordable alternatives if they cannot pay for these medications. That is where we sensed that no one in the value chain was addressing that, and we can fill that void."

The organization based in Mumbai offers guidance to consumers on generic alternatives for the branded drugs they need. This ultimately enables consumers to reduce expenses, as generic drugs tend to be cheaper than their branded versions due to production cost efficiencies.

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Truemeds claims its unique strategy has been successful, as revenue increased by over 66 percent annually to reach Rs 5 billion ($57 million) in the previous financial year. The startup reports that it maintains over 50 percent of its revenue after a year and currently caters to around 500,000 customers monthly, totaling 3 million customers so far. Additionally, it claims to currently cover over 20,000 postal codes nationwide, with over 75 percent of its clientele originating from tier-2 cities and larger.