The medicine delivery platform Liki24 has just announced the completion of a $5 million round of funding from Horizon Capital, the leading private equity firm in Ukraine and Moldova. The company will use the money to expand to new markets, starting from Poland.
Liki24.com is a marketplace aggregating offers from thousands of pharmacies and facilitating transactions between pharmacies and consumers. Launched in late 2017 by Anton Avrinsky, an experienced Ukrainian entrepreneur, the platform aimed to address three consumer pain points: significant variation in pricing among market players, limited availability of medicines in one point of sale, and lack of home delivery.
Liki24 raised $2 million through two initial rounds of equity funding. The first one was led by two Ukrainian investors — TA Ventures, one of the largest and most active Ukraine-based VC firms, and Genesis Investments. A part of the funding was also provided by Michael Puzrakov, a co-founder of the Lviv-based Intellias software company, and other business angels.
In less than three years, the company claims to have connected more than 5,000 pharmacies and completed over 500,000 orders powered by its proprietary software system.
The system integrates with pharmacies’ ERPs, instantly analyzing prices, the availability of medicines, and developing optimal routes for couriers. Drugs are delivered rapidly at affordable prices.
Liki24 also helps insurance and pharmaceutical companies to serve their clients better.
During the recent lockdown, Liki24 partnered with Ukrainian logistics operators to offer free delivery of medication, allowing many people to stay home amid the pandemic.
Thus, Liki24 was featured in an article by Sifted as one of theEuropean start-ups contributing to easing the negative impact of coronavirus. BBC Ukraine also included the company in its list of services that helped patients during the lockdown.