1001Pharmacies, the first marketplace for pharmacies in France, has announced this morning that they have closed a €600K Angel round, which includes Priciminister Co-Founder Olivier Mathiot, MenLook CoFounder & France Digitale VP Marc Menasé, Wyde cofounder Jean Renée Lyon, LAB cofounder Gilles Emmanuel Bernard, Scoop.it cofounder Marc Rougier, and Happyview’s Marc Adamowicz. With this monster line-up of investors, 1001Pharmacies, cofounded by Sabine Safi & Cedric O’Neill, is ready to expand its online pharmacy marketplace, and it seems the timing is just right.
Shortly after the company founded at the end of last year, the French government passed a law allowing the sale of non-prescription medicine online, which has given 1001Pharmacies a distinct first to market advantage. Currently, the startup is working with 32 pharmacies all over France, including two in Paris and about a dozen in Montpellier, where the startup is from. The startup recently released a white paper[fr] about online pharmacies, and while there is certainly a lot of education to be done in the market about what can and cannot be bought online, they’ve put themselves in a distinct vantage point.
The site itself still lacks a bit for me – hopefully most of that €600K will go to a new site. It’s not exactly clear arriving on the site whether a user can buy prescription items, or just items that one might find in a Walgreens/pharmacy in France – bandages, condoms, skin cream, etc. I was able to find a pharmacy “near my home” in Paris fairly easily with their search, though I doubt an average user would go searching as hard as I did.
Nonetheless, there’s no doubt that, just like everything else, the market is tending towards online sales and price comparison, and while there are 14 pharmacies within 4 blocks of my apartment, I could definitely see myself doing some price comparison between them so that my 50€ body wash costs that much instead of the 67€ that the guy closest to me has been charging.