DR. VITUS BLOG

Alto Adds $50m to Expand
Online Pharmacy
Start-up pharmacy marketplace Alto
Pharmacy has added additional $50
million in a Series C funding round,
adding to its venture capital sufficient
amounts to push ahead with its
expansion strategy that would allow the
company to establish a truly nation-
wide footprint well across the United
States.
Alto Pharmacy was created back in
2015, after the acquisition of AG
Pharmacy, which is a brick-and-mortar
pharmacy based in San Francisco. The
AG Pharmacy brand is an established
local player with 30 years to its name,
and Alto Pharmacy is its reinvented
digital alter ego.
As a result, Alto Pharmacy is one of
the leading online pharmacies where
you can get same-day prescription
deliveries, along with a number of other
services that are readily available on the
cards.
The company originally started
operating under the name of ScriptDash,
which better captured the instant nature
of the company, but as more private
equity began flowing into the company,
so they decided to change it for
marketing purposes.
It was at around time that the company
rose $23 million during a Series B
funding round, which helped it hit new
markets in Los Angeles. With the fresh
$50 million, the company will seek to
prove itself even more, establishing a
truly national footprint.
Alto will seek to double up on its
efforts and see if it can break into new
areas well beyond San Francisco and
Southern California. But apart from
scalability, the venture firm will also
seek to improve-upon its existing offer
and bring more people onboard with
what it has to offer, guaranteeing the
reach and quality of its service.
Alto is also extending its offer to drug
makers, offering to take the medicine
off their hands and deliver it straight to
people’s homes, which will cut the
middlemen from the process and add
value to all parties in the chain.
Presently, Alto uses estimated 400
chain pharmacy locations to ensure that
deliveries are done within the same day
and that people get the medicine that
they have ordered. Alto is acting as a
delivery service and the company
focuses on expanding and creating
healthy connections between patients
and pharmacies rather than handling the
drugs themselves.
This exempts the company from any
legal complications further down the
road. Alto is fully prepared to address
any future complications that may
originate from the delivery system
although the company’s executives are
sure that Alto will not slip when it
comes to carry out a specific delivery.
Alto is operating in a highly-competitive
sector, which means that the company
will need to find itself a place in niches
and then push back against giants,
such as Amazon. Amazon has been
dominating a lot of the online
commerce in the states and this is only
likely to spill over other sectors.
However, Alto’s offer is comprehensive
enough for the company to have
guaranteed itself strong bastions well
across the United States, making it
completely resilient against unfair
competition.