Announcing our Investment in Phil
Filling prescriptions is a pain point for countless consumers, especially for those with recurring medication needs that live outside of urban areas. Consumers experience long wait times and often leave the pharmacy empty-handed. The large chain pharmacies’ business models are predicated on having consumers wait for their prescriptions and peruse the other aisles for razors, candy, gift cards, etc. There’s a reason the pharmacy is always in the back of the store!
As was announced last week, Crosslink led Phil’s Series A investment in Phil alongside our friends at ENIAC and SoftTech. We initially met Deepak Thomas, the CEO, at the time of the seed round, but they were too far along in the process. We believed Deepak was uniquely situated to attack this market: he combined personal frustration with the consumer pain point with an impressive resume of launching and scaling mobile applications. We maintained a relationship with the company ahead of the Series A and were impressed with the quality of execution and rigorous focus on unit economics.
Phil is building a digitally native pharmacy that delivers prescriptions to consumers for no additional charge above their existing co-pay. Phil leverages locally-owned, independent retail pharmacies to create a unique, asset-light approach to prescription delivery. Phil does not own or manage their delivery fleet — but rather, leverages third-party logistics providers. Phil solves distribution and capacity utilization for independent pharmacy partners and enables partner pharmacies to significantly boost profitability with no capex/opex impact. We believe Phil’s unique, asset-light approach to prescription delivery is attractive as it allows the company to rapidly scale going after the $400B spent annually on retail prescriptions. That market is dominated by large retail players, such as CVS, Walgreens, and several others.
When a customer signs up with Phil, the company routes their order to a partner pharmacy that runs the customer’s insurance. Phil can also transfer prescriptions from your existing pharmacy or through your doctor. While today Phil’s value prop is largely around customer experience and convenience, we believe improved drug adherence is another benefit of the service.
We are thrilled to welcome Phil to the Crosslink family. If you’re looking for an easier way to manage and receive your prescriptions, check out Phil!
