Tata 1mg is shifting gears to become a full-stack healthcare service provider to offer everything from diagnostic services to e-consultations and medicines, both online and offline.

The healthtech startup is reportedly in advanced talks to raise around $200 Mn (INR 2,400 Cr) in yet another funding round. The round is said to have attracted interest from several new global investors, including Novo Holdings, the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB), Permira, and ChrysCapital.

The whispers of the new round have come at a crucial time for one of the earliest healthtech startups in India..

With this, the company now expects to rule the entire outpatient ecosystem, pushing it closer to breaching the INR 3K Cr revenue mark in FY26. In FY25, the startup posted a revenue of INR 2,400 Cr, up 22% year-on-year (YoY), and trimmed its loss 12% YoY to INR 276 Cr.

Focussed on tapping into India’s $38 Bn outpatient market, the company is aggressively positioning itself to lock horns with Apollo and Max — the two mavericks of this arena.

Now, before we immerse ourselves in understanding what aces does 1mg have up its sleeves and what its next phase of growth looks like, let’s trace the company’s journey from the start.

Early Days Of 1mg

Tata 1mg traces its journey back to 2012, when it was launched as Healthkart Plus, the content arm of Sameer Maheshwari’s HealthKart. However, little do people know that 1mg’s story closely mirrors Zomato’s early journey. How, you ask?

• Both Zomato and 1mg started under very different identities from what they are today. While Zomato began as FoodieBay (little known to date), 1mg was Healthkart Plus.
• Both started as a listing platform, before making an inevitable pivot to consumer-facing commerce
• While Zomato made Indians order food online, Tata 1mg did this for medicine.

To incorporate HealthKart, Prashant Tandon from McKinsey & Company joined hands with Maheshwari. While Maheshwari focussed on scaling HealthKart into a nutrition and health supplement platform, Tandon spearheaded HealthKart Plus, a content-driven platform that offered information on medicines, their salt composition, and substitute brands.

The platform, HealthKart Plus, quickly began attracting significant organic traffic, as users sought reliable information about their medicines.

“However, something was missing in the way we were doing things,” said Tandon.

The founder continued business as usual until 2015, and then decided to move on. For long, HealthKart Plus had remained a content arm for HealthKart, which would only sell supplements. However, Tandon wanted to change that and expand the company’s horizons.

“I had always wanted to cover the OPD ecosystem, which comprises content, medicine, consultation, and diagnostics,”........

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