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Directo, an independent online business-to-business (B2B) marketplace for the pharmacy sector, has raised $2 million to expand its supplier and pharmacy base with the latest round strongly supported by existing investors.
The capital raise comes on the back of a record trading quarter for the three months to the end of June for the platform, which supports more than 3,000 pharmacy retailers nationally.
Through Directo, retailers can directly order from a database of more than 200 suppliers and wholesalers, providing about 45,000 multi-category pharmacy products in a single transaction.
Directo, which was founded by Gavin Upiter in 2017 as an online marketplace connecting pharmacy buyers and sellers, revealed in June when the capital raise was launched that the business has achieved a doubling in growth annually over the past two years with annualised revenue sitting at $40 million.
The latest capital raise comes on the heels of a $2.3 million seed round for the Melbourne-based company in 2022 that was led by early-stage venture capitalist firm Investible.
Directo is said to add value to pharmacists by reducing supply-chain costs, improving efficiency, delivering price transparency and simplifying interactions between suppliers and pharmacies.
“The strong support from existing investors, including pharmacy owners, in this capital raise is an endorsement of Directo and places our company in a strong position to accelerate the growth of the business,” says Upiter, the managing director of Directo.
“Our platform is transforming the Australian pharmacy wholesale supply chain, a $20 billion annual market, by digitising the pharmacy-to-supplier journey.
“With the additional funds raised, we are well placed to onboard more pharmacies and suppliers and integrate additional AI-driven solutions into our platform.”
Upiter notes that Directo’s strong performance at the end of FY24 has continued into the current year as the platform now counts more than half of Australia’s pharmacies among its users which include Terry White Chemmart, Direct Chemist Outlet, Chempro and Good Price Pharmacy Group.
“We finished the June 2024 quarter with record trading results, which continued into the new financial year with a record monthly performance in July, reinforcing our strong market position,” he says.
“We will continue to assist retail pharmacies and their suppliers reduce administrative efforts, improve cash flow management, and streamline processes through electronic invoicing, consolidating credits, payments and the management of supply and invoicing queries.”
The Directo platform is engineered for compatibility with existing pharmacy IT, finance and point-of-sale systems.
The customer portal offers white-labelled solutions and specific shipment rules for sellers and buying groups, catering to the needs of Australia’s fragmented pharmacy sector.
Apart from enhancing its existing platform and expanding its supplier and pharmacy base, Directo’s current growth plans include a move to broaden its services into allied health and to develop new services for the sector to drive further revenue growth.
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