Ukrainian e-commerce platform Liki24, which delivers medicine from pharmacies cheaper and faster than other services, has attracted $5 million of investments to hire new specialists and expand on the European market.
Five investment funds, including Horizon Capital, TA Ventures, Genesis Investments, iClub and Mission Tech put money into the Ukrainian startup, bringing its total funding to $6 million, the company announced on Aug. 13.
With this money, the startup wants to launch its services in Europe and the U.K., which will be the company’s next market, according to Liki24 founder Anton Avrinsky.
The U.K. pharmaceutical industry is among the seventh largest worldwide with a market value of around 21 billion pounds, which makes it “a great fit” for Liki24, according to Avrinsky.
Apart from Ukraine, where the company of 35 people has two main offices, Liki24 also rolled out its platform in Poland earlier in July.
The company is now testing its deliveries in Warsaw, but wants to cover the whole country, Avrinsky told the Kyiv Post.
In other markets, Liki24 works the same way: Customers order medicines which they select from thousands of pharmacies and wait for a courier to deliver them straight to their door.
The company looks for the pharmacies with the most affordable prices, so customers pay 30% less. Delivery costs about $2 and it forms the main profit of the startup, the founders say.
According to Avrinsky, other companies on the market either just compare prices or deliver medicines from warehouses, so customers have fewer options to choose from.
On the contrary, Liki24 controls the whole process of the delivery and has an unlimited number of options, as it can buy medicines in multiple pharmacies.
It also eliminates fraud. In Ukraine, the pharmaceutical business is unregulated, so pharmacies put different prices on medications. Liki24 looks for the cheapest options.
During the coronavirus lockdown, the Ukrainian startup boosted its sales — more people stayed home and ordered goods online to avoid lines in the pharmacy.
Amid the quarantine, the company delivered medicine for free. In Kyiv, however, where citizens have more access to pharmacies, Liki24 just reduced the price of the delivery to nearly $1.
For its help during the pandemic, the Ukrainian company was listed among the European startups that developed the most useful services helping to fight COVID-19.
