Capsule, the 'Uber of Pharmacy,' Secures $20 Million to Deliver Medications Within 2 Hours Across New York City

VCBeat (WeChat: vcbeat) has learned that Capsule, a home medication delivery platform, recently secured $20 million in financing, led by Thrive Capital, with participation from Sound Ventures and Virgin Group.

Capsule is a pharmaceutical startup based in New York, USA. Founded in 2016 and dubbed the “Uber of medications,” it aims to provide patients with home medication delivery services.However, Capsule’s services are currently limited to New York City. Following this round of financing, the team stated that it may consider rapidly replicating this model in other cities.

Capsule positions itself as a smart pharmacy accessible remotely via an app, pioneering the next generation of pharmacies. According to the company, any physician can prescribe medications directly through Capsule, which then dispatches dedicated personnel to deliver the prepared drugs to any location within New York City within two hours, ensuring they reach patients directly. All delivery services are provided free of charge to consumers. Capsule also stated that it will collaborate with insurance companies to facilitate copayments, so patients need not worry about out-of-pocket expenses.

Furthermore, Capsule offers a dynamic inventory system that enables physicians to optimize medication ratios when writing prescriptions. More importantly, the entire process is conducted online, significantly saving time for both doctors and patients.Regarding Capsule, VCBeat has previously published related reports,Click here for details。  

In a press release, Eric Kinariwala, CEO and founder of Capsule, stated: “We are building the first holistic pharmacy system designed to serve everyone—a technology platform for consumers, physicians, hospitals, insurers, and manufacturers that enables real-time exchange of medication feedback.”

Capsule was founded on the basis of overcoming various setbacks and leveraging extensive experience in investment and pharmacy operations. Founder Kinariwala previously worked in investment at Bain Capital and Perry Capital. Chief Pharmacist Sonia Patel has over a decade of experience in the pharmaceutical industry; she was selected by Walmart to help address the performance issues of its underperforming pharmacies. Because previous pharmaceutical data systems were cumbersome and inefficient, nearly 40% of people had to travel between pharmacies due to stockouts, with average wait times reaching up to one hour. These challenges inspired Kinariwala and Sonia Patel to create Capsule.

Kinariwala stated, “We live in a country that invests more in healthcare than any other nation, yet our pharmacies fail to safeguard our health. The pharmacy industry is overly large and fragmented, with an excessive focus on squeezing the last dollar out of traditional business models rather than investing in innovation.”

However, startups can leverage technology to provide this flexibility, undertaking tasks that clinicians, pharmacies, employers, and insurers are unable to perform due to the attrition of front-office resources and a lack of data visibility among stakeholders. As Kinariwala stated, “Medication is disconnected from the rest of healthcare. By building tools and leveraging data to integrate medication into the system, Capsule serves as a platform modernizing pharmaceuticals, delivering better experiences and improved health outcomes for everyone’s benefit.”

Recently, some startups have attracted significant investment by improving the pharmacy experience through faster, more affordable services and user-friendly interfaces. Examples include PillPack and Blink Health, the main competitors of Capsule.

PillPack is an online pharmacy that provides personalized medication services to users, including pre-sorting, packaging, and delivery of medications. Users can contact the company’s pharmacy team via the internet or phone 24/7. As a virtual pharmacy and a medication adherence app, it completed a $55 million Series D financing round last September, bringing its total funding to $117.8 million.

Blink Health, also based in New York City, adopts a slightly different approach from Capsule. It negotiates prices like traditional pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs), partnering with pharmacies through group purchasing to offer the most affordable medications across the United States. Blink Health completed a $90 million Series B financing round this April, bringing its total funding to $165 million.

In recent years, a number of O2O home-delivery pharmaceutical platforms have emerged in China, such as Kuaifang Medicine and Dingdang Express Medicine. Both have secured substantial funding and are committed to building a healthy model for the future of offline new retail in the pharmaceutical sector. VCBeat has also published relevant reports on this topic. For more information,Click here。