Digital health · E-pharmacy
Digi-Prex
A WhatsApp-first subscription pharmacy for chronic disease patients in Hyderabad, funded in one of India’s largest 2019 seed rounds. Seven years on the site is live, no second round has been announced, and the founder’s other company has raised three times as much.
A prescription, sent over WhatsApp
A patient in Hyderabad photographs a prescription and sends it to a phone number. Someone reads it, prices it, and a month of medication arrives at the door. The next month it arrives again, unasked.
That is the product, and the company still sells it in those words. The front page of digi-prex.com offers to “Have your monthly supply of medication delivered right to your doorstep every month for no additional cost,” up to 15 percent below a neighbourhood pharmacy, ordered by sharing a prescription on WhatsApp with one Indian mobile number.
In September 2019, seven months in, that idea raised $5.5 million led by Khosla Ventures. TechCrunch called it one of the largest seed rounds an Indian startup had closed.
A pharmacy on every street, and no rules for the ones online
India does not lack pharmacies. Lawyers at Ronin Legal, writing for the International Bar Association, described a country where neighbourhood shops “have proliferated to the point where there is often one on each street, and several within a square mile, in every city.” In cities, access is not the bottleneck.
Adherence is. A chronic patient needs the same basket every month, often from several shops, at whatever the counter asks. Digi-Prex bought direct from distributors, passed part of the discount on and automated the reorder. Samarth Sindhi framed it as service rather than catalogue: the company took “a novel approach of having personalised interactions with each client as opposed to providing an ‘Amazon’ for medicines like other online Indian pharmacies.”
What it did not have was a rulebook. India’s Drugs and Cosmetics Act of 1940 says nothing about selling medicine online, and draft e-pharmacy rules published on August 28, 2018 have never been notified. That December the Delhi High Court, hearing a petition from the dermatologist Zaheer Ahmed, stayed unlicensed online sale. Asked in the Rajya Sabha in June 2019 when rules would come, the health ministry said the matter was before several High Courts and that “no timeline for finalization of the rules can be provided.”
In November 2023 the court gave the government a last chance: “This court is of the view that more than five years have lapsed and the Union of India has had sufficient time to frame a policy.” The drug controller had already served 20 e-pharmacies, quoting the 2018 order: “Respondents are injuncted from online sale of medicines without licence and the respondents are directed to ensure that the same is prohibited forthwith until further orders.” Tata 1mg, Flipkart Health+ and Amazon were named in reporting on those notices. Digi-Prex was not.
The founder
Samarth Sindhi took a mechanical engineering degree at Brown University and worked with a healthcare firm in the United States before returning to India. What struck him on his return was not healthcare. “When I returned to India, I was fascinated by how nobody was texting anymore. Everyone was doing everything on WhatsApp,” he told TechCrunch.
The distribution model followed. Rather than buy customers with advertising, Digi-Prex recruited them through clinicians. “Instead of trying to acquire customers online, we work with physicians and pharmacies to serve customers,” Sindhi said, sharing margin with both.
One detail sits a year off the founding story. Every account, Y Combinator’s directory included, dates the company to 2019. The Telangana company that carries the business was incorporated on May 28, 2018.
Raksha, then Mars, then Saturn
By January 2020 the business was trading as Raksha Health, and the ambition had widened past delivery. In March 2021 Sindhi described roughly 500 people arranging admissions and booking surgeries. “We have an app that keeps track of recurring medicine orders that one might require, but when it comes to surgeries and procedures, we recognise that there needs to be a certain level of hand-holding,” he said. Medicine was the opening move: “The idea was always to build a relationship of trust and that began with delivering medicines, the most frequent transaction anyone ever has in their healthcare journey.”
Then came a second company. In January 2021 Sindhi launched Good Health Clinic with hair fall treatments under the brand Mars by GHC. It raised $5.2 million that June from Khosla Ventures, Quiet Capital, W Health Ventures and Weekend Fund, then $10 million in October 2022 led by Left Lane Capital, adding a women’s brand, Saturn by GHC. Wellness products carry none of the licensing exposure prescription medicine does.
A check on September 24, 2026 found digi-prex.com serving its original page. The rakshahealth.com address cited in 2021 did not resolve. Both ghc.health and saturn.health did.
What is proven, and what is still claimed
| Evidence | What the record shows | Source type |
|---|---|---|
| Corporate registration | Ricaria Support Services Private Limited, CIN U74999TG2018PTC124771, incorporated May 28, 2018, Banjara Hills, Hyderabad. Active on a record updated Aug 15, 2026. Authorised capital INR 12.00 crore, paid up INR 6.30 crore, no registered charges. Directors Sharada Pinisetty and Samarth Sindhi. | Public record |
| Second entity | Sarosa Medtech Private Limited, CIN U74999TG2019PTC132368, incorporated Apr 29, 2019, listed as associated with Digi-Prex and as Strike off. | Public record |
| Revenue | Three services read the same filings differently: Tofler, INR 1 crore to 100 crore for the year to Mar 2022; Tracxn, 0 to INR 10 crore as of Mar 2025; The Company Check, $18.74 million as of Mar 2023. | Sources disagree |
| Seed round | $5.5M announced Sep 20, 2019. TechCrunch named Khosla Ventures, Vedanta Capital, Y Combinator, Quiet Capital, SV Angel and Justin Mateen; KrASIA added Liquid2 Ventures, Soma Capital and PioneerFund. | Independent |
| US securities filing | Globevestor Digi-Prex Fund I, CIK 0001804057, Form D filed Apr 10, 2020: $82,500 offered and sold, 19 accredited investors, minimum $2,200, first sale Sep 4, 2019. Digi-Prex itself has filed no Form D. | Public record |
| Drug licence | No Telangana licence under Digi-Prex, Raksha Health or Ricaria found in public reporting, though the state has offered public licence verification since April 2024. | Not found |
| Regulatory position | The December 2018 interim order stands, the 2018 draft rules are unnotified, and 20 e-pharmacies were served notices in February 2023. Digi-Prex was not among those named. | Public record |
| Headcount | Y Combinator lists 32 and Active. Tracxn lists 26 as of Aug 2026, and Ricaria at 5 as of Mar 2023. The Company Check lists 7 as of Mar 2024. | Sources disagree |
| Clinical record | No FDA clearance, registered trial, NIH award or PubMed paper. The single NSF award a name search returns belongs to DIGI-CLONE LTD, an unrelated company. | Not found |
Read plainly: the company is still on the register and unlevered, but almost nothing about its scale can be checked. The one figure every source agrees on is the $5.5 million raised in 2019. Revenue, headcount and licensing each resolve differently depending on which record you open, and the money that came later went to a different company with the same founder.
What to watch
- Notification of the e-pharmacy rules, unnotified since August 28, 2018.
- A drug licence in the Telangana public register under any of the company’s names.
- Any Digi-Prex round after September 2019. None has been reported in seven years.
- Whether Good Health Company, now the larger business, absorbs the pharmacy or leaves it separate.
In their words
“When I returned to India, I was fascinated by how nobody was texting anymore. Everyone was doing everything on WhatsApp.”
Samarth Sindhi, founder, to TechCrunch, 2019 · Independent
“Instead of trying to acquire customers online, we work with physicians and pharmacies to serve customers.”
Samarth Sindhi, to TechCrunch, 2019 · Independent
“We take a novel approach of having personalised interactions with each client as opposed to providing an ‘Amazon’ for medicines like other online Indian pharmacies.”
Samarth Sindhi, to YourStory, 2019 · Independent
“The idea was always to build a relationship of trust and that began with delivering medicines, the most frequent transaction anyone ever has in their healthcare journey.”
Samarth Sindhi, to EdexLive, 2021 · Interview
“We have an app that keeps track of recurring medicine orders that one might require, but when it comes to surgeries and procedures, we recognise that there needs to be a certain level of hand-holding.”
Samarth Sindhi, to EdexLive, 2021 · Interview
“Our aim, right from the first day, was to provide a scientifically proven solution to the unmet healthcare care needs of our consumers.”
Samarth Sindhi, founder of GHC, October 2022 · Company-stated
“Good Health Company’s rapid growth rate these past 18 months is testament that India’s population is hungry for scientifically proven, medical-grade health and wellness products.”
Vinny Pujji, Left Lane Capital, 2022 · Investor
Related companies
Sources
- Public recordForm D, Globevestor Digi-Prex Fund I, CIK 0001804057
- Public recordRicaria Support Services Private Limited, CIN U74999TG2018PTC124771
- Public recordDigi-Prex associated legal entities and employee counts
- Public recordDraft Rules on Sale of Drugs by E-Pharmacies
- IndependentAn Indian startup that uses WhatsApp raises $5.5M seed round
- IndependentDigi-Prex raises $5.5 M from Khosla Ventures at YC Demo Day
- InterviewThis 27-year-old start-up founder does more than deliver medicines
- IndependentGood Health Clinic raises $5.2M led by Khosla Ventures
- IndependentGood Health Company raises $10 million led by Left Lane Capital
- IndependentTwenty e-pharmacies served notice for violating drug rules
- IndependentE-pharmacies and the law: an uneasy balance
- Independent1mg overtakes PharmEasy in market share
- CompanyDigi-Prex website home page
- CompanyDigi-Prex company page, Summer 2019, Active
Profile researched and written by Healthcare Discovery. Last updated September 29, 2026.
