The place to be for pharma

• Imagine LinkedIn meets Amazon, but for pharmacists and pharmacies. That’s how SwipeRx (formerly known as mClinica) serves the healthcare industry, and the 500-backed company has raised a US$27M Series B led by MDI Ventures with participation from the Gates Foundation and more.
• In a nutshell, SwipeRx offers both commerce and community solutions to break the silos in the fragmented pharmaceutical industry in Southeast Asia. To date, 235,000 pharmacy professionals and 45,000 pharmacies in the region use its app.
• “We are excited to hold the pole position in SEA as a platform that has transformed and digitized the pharmacy industry, becoming their one-stop platform to perform all daily tasks from education to purchasing to inventory financing,” said Founder & CEO Farouk Meralli.
• The app also helps pharmacists search for new job opportunities or to post job offers, and everything else a pharmacy professional would need to advance professionally and better serve patients.
• The company will use the fresh capital to scale its growth across Southeast Asia, expand its logistics network for B2B e-commerce, and expand its team.
• Congratulations to the SwipeRx team!
• Read the full story on TechCrunch.

Boosting small businesses

• “The one that is most resilient [in an economic downturn] is actually the micro-segment, i.e. the mom-and-pop kiosks,” Bukalapak President Teddy Oetomo told Bloomberg.
• Currently, there are 13 million such businesses on the platform, with the majority being resellers of FMCGs (fast-moving consumer goods). Now, with AlloFresh, Bukalapak’s e-grocery startup, the company has 128 stores that can serve as dark stores for the mom-and-pop kiosks.
• Ultimately, Bukalapak aims to be a tech enabler for businesses across different verticals to grow and profit sustainably.
• Watch the full interview on Bloomberg.

Thoughtful connections and education

• How can businesses keep pace with the post-pandemic paradigm shift at work? The keyword over the last couple of years has, of course, been ‘technology’. However, what’s important to So-Young Kang, Founder & CEO of Gnowbe, is ‘human technology’.
• The pertinent question here, she believes, is “How do we create connection points before, during, and after a webinar in a more human way?”
• “Inertia becomes an important barrier for companies to overcome,” she said. That’s where Gnowbe comes in — to give creators the tools to simplify learning experiences and get more creative using technology.
• So-Young elaborated that it is essential for companies to recognize that learners are not all the same. “When you design your curriculum and learner experience, it needs to connect with as many people as possible,” she concluded.
• So-Young was also recently featured on Forbes as a next-generation leader and entrepreneur!