Quick pharma startup Plazza to expand store network with $15 mn funding

Rapid drug delivery platform Plazza has raised $15 million in a Series A financing round co-led by Accel, Elevation Capital and Nexus Venture Partners, with participation from existing investors All In Capital and Better Capital.

Founder and CEO Aman Priyadarshi said the funding will be used to expand the store network Mint On Monday.

“We have a few stores in Bengaluru where we are piloting and have now raised capital to increase our geographical footprint. We are opening around 10 stores very quickly in the next eight weeks and will have around 20 stores in the city by the end of this year,” he said.

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Plazza plans to expand to other cities within a year and will open more than 3,000 stores in the next three to four years.

Founded in 2024, Plazza is focusing on stocking a larger inventory and offering express 15-30 minute deliveries to tap into the country’s crowded pharmacy market. While traditional pharmacies optimize retail with a smaller service area and established online pharmacy players prioritize inventory over speed, Plazza’s model focuses on fast deliveries as well as a larger service area around its stores.

It also uses artificial intelligence to create store-specific inventories, focusing on micro-market demand.

The new capital will also be used to strengthen Plazza’s technology platform and deepen its AI-driven inventory and assortment intelligence, the company said in a press release.

The startup has an omnichannel model with physical stores and online deliveries but prioritizes the latter. “We expect our customers to place orders through an app or WhatsApp and we deliver. We use a major portion of the space to store inventory and that’s how we did our manpower planning, store design, etc,” Priyadarshi said.

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Artificial intelligence-driven approach

Unlike retail pharmacies, which typically stock 5,000 medications and have prescription fill rates of 50-60%, Plazza stocks more than 40,000 stock keeping units (SKUs), using AI-powered inventory intelligence to continually learn local prescribing patterns.

The AI-powered inventory planning system adapts each store’s assortment based on neighborhood-level demand. Only 50% of the best-selling drugs overlap across two stores in Bengaluru, demonstrating how significantly prescribing behavior varies across micro-markets.

The firm grew GMV nearly 27x between June 2025 and March 2026.

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The country’s organized pharmacy retail space has witnessed rapid consolidation dominated by giants like Tata 1mg and Apollo 24/7. Recent funding activity in this area has been sparse and targeted at companies addressing gaps. Generics-focused Truemeds raised $85 million in a Series C round in August 2025 led by Accel and Peak XV.

Another generic drug startup, PlatinumRx, raised $6 million in a Series A round led by Stellaris Venture Partners in September 2025.