Lifestyle retail pharmacy chain, Wellness Forever has recently known to raise Rs. 130 crore on 9th November from Allana Group from UAE and Adar Poonawalla- the CEO of Serum Institute of India amongst many others including existing investors Sajid Fazalbhoy and Rajiv Dadlani.
Wellness Forever brings traditional behind the counter pharmacy to a combination format with additional wellness products that include a self-browsing department of consumer packaged products.
When asked about the freshly acquired funds, the company said that it will utilise them for its highly profitable private label brands under subsidiary- Amore, in strengthening it and expanding their storage. The company also aims to invest more in e-commerce sector which is highly profitable witnessing the digital industry boom because of the COVID-19 pandemic situation in India.
According to sources, Wellness Forever also plans to open over 150 more stores in 2021 along with over a thousand retail outlets in the span of the next three years.
The wellness products company started over 10 years ago and is concluding this fiscal year with revenues worth 1,000 crores. Maharashtra, Karnataka and beach capital of India- Goa together have over 200 Forever Wellness stores.
The company is high on ground with an estimated sale of over Rs. 5,000 crore in the next 3 to 4 years with more than a thousand stores operational all across the country. According to sources, the company said that it got attention from several highly reputed private equity investors but Wellness Forever chose to stick with the existing ones seeing their faith in the brand and given their expertise in Pharmaceutical sector, retail business and FMCG products.
UAE-based Allana Group owns a 0.8% stake in Wellness Forever, according to a data research firm, VCCEdge. The largest investor of the company after its founders remains Aadar poonawala, CEO of the vaccine maker company- Serum Institute of India Pvt. Ltd. with 15% stake.
Wellness Forever also mentioned that it has appointed investment bank JM Financial Limited for its pre-Initial Public Offering preparations and secondary share sale for early financers.
The company is already focussing on an online to offline business strategy and plans to inculcate a hyper-local delivery system to expand its e-commerce business and other operations as well.
Gulshan Bhaktiani, Founder and Operational Director of Wellness Forever says that the company will reach out to its customers not just through brick and mortar channels but online channels as well.
