Healthtech startup InstantScripts sees valuation jumps 10% as Bailador chips in another $5 million

Digital healthcare platform has raised $5 million in a follow-on investment from ASX-listed venture fund Bailador Technology Investments.

Bailador (ASX:BTI) has already tipped $16.6 million into InstantScripts, and the latest capital injection has defied the current trend of plunging startup valuations, with the VC saying the valuation at the latest round has resulted in a 10% ($1.7 million or $0.01 per share) uplift to the company’s valuation.

Developer and entrepreneur Maxim Shklyar and Melbourne GP and financier Dr Asher Freilich cofounded InstantScripts after they met in 2018 at a networking event.

“Asher brought to me his idea for an online healthcare service. I offered to build him a prototype. Within three months, we brought InstantScripts to the market,” Shklyar said.

They bootstrapped the business using $50,000 of Dr Freilich’s savings, reinvesting nearly all their profits back into InstantScripts in their first year. In 2021, they took on a $10.9 million investment from a consortium of investors led by specialist investment management firm Perennial.

InstantScripts cofounder Maxim Shklyar

Belarus-born Shklyar, the startup’s Chief Technology and Product Officer,  originally built the platform on his own, setting out to to capture the large patient market that only sees a GP for prescriptions.

InstantScripts enables people to access high quality doctor care and routine prescription medications safely, securely and in a clinically responsible manner. It initially offered prescriptions through its website or app, which are sent to the patient’s local pharmacy and can be picked up or delivered. In 2020, they expanded the service to offer telehealth consultations and pathology.

In January this year it expanded into The Green Doc: a telehealth cannabis service.

Other innovations include InstantCosmetics, which provides supervision and training for cosmetic nurses at 700-plus cosmetic clinics, and medical tests for specific concerns, including a PCOS pathology referral test, vitamin deficiency tests for patients with sleep issues, tests to determine the cause of baldness, and HIV Prevent, a prescription offering for PrEP, a preventative HIV medication.

InstantScripts’ revenue has grown over 120% year-on-year and in 2022, the business has gone from 350,000 users at the start of the year to more than 500,000 users registered on its platform, with more than 40,000 prescriptions filled every month.

Bailador cofounder and managing partner Paul Wilson said digital health is a fast developing area that appealed to the fund.

“InstantScripts is at the forefront providing a solution which is being embraced by consumers in large numbers, and increasing the efficiency of the health system in Australia in a responsible way,” he said.

“It is an outstanding company in which Bailador is proud to increase its shareholding.”

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