Glasgow-based digital pharmacy Phlo has secured a further £9 million in investment, it announced today (April 17).

The Scottish distance selling pharmacy (DSP) said that the capital injection would be used to “power significant scaling”, moving from digital pharmacy to “holistic digital healthcare”.

It added that in the year to come, it intends to grow “the geographic footprint of its UK operations”, expand its “technology-based partnerships” with other “health providers” and employ more people via “strategic headcount growth at all levels across the company”.

Read more: Online pharmacy Phlo secures new chief pharmacist

This marks Phlo’s second bumper funding round. In February last year, it announced a £10m “Series A” venture capital financing round, which it said would be used to “support the scaling of Phlo’s operations and their partnerships with other healthcare providers”.

It today announced that its “lead investor” for this latest round was venture capital (VC) firm Par Equity, with VC firm Thairm Bio and Scottish Enterprise - Scotland’s national economic development agency - also providing funds.

“Huge vote of confidence”

Phlo said that the investment followed a year of “robust business growth and scale”, as it launched “major new products” for women’s health, weight management and on-demand prescribing services. 

Phlo chief executive and founder Nadeem Sarwar added that the UK’s technology sector had lately been “unpredictable and incredibly challenging”, but that with their investment, Phlo’s funders had given the company “a huge vote of confidence”.

Read more: Scottish online pharmacy acquires US prescription service in 'landmark' deal

Par Equity managing partner Paul Munn said that its investment would support the digital pharmacy to become “an end-to-end digital healthcare provider in the UK”.

And Scottish Enterprise director of entrepreneurship and investment Kerry Sharp said that Phlo “fits well” with the development agency’s missions, which include supporting companies that can bring “strong economic benefits to Scotland”.

Scottish Enterprise was also among the funders in Phlo’s “Series A” round last year.

Read more: Scottish online pharmacy secures £10m cash injection to expand across UK

C+D reported in August that Phlo had secured the services of Alistair Murray as its chief pharmacist. Murray was previously the founding clinician at Echo, which was subsequently bought by Lloydspharmacy in 2019 and rebranded to LloydsDirect. 

In April 2023, Phlo announced it had bought the UK assets of US-based online prescription service Truepill for an undisclosed sum, along with Truepill UK’s business-to-business healthcare partnerships, NHS patient base and technology solutions.

And back in 2020, C+D reported on Phlo’s extraordinary crowdfunding push, when it raised £1.65m within a day of launching its campaign.