Pharmapacks will use the funding to add 70 jobs, expand inventory and to sell online in Asia and Europe.

A major online retailer of healthcare products with ambitious plans to reach $1 billion in web sales in as soon as four years is getting some fresh cash to help with the growth.

Pharmapacks, which sells over-the-counter medications for everything from acne to stomach problems, as well as vitamins, supplements, home medical supplies, baby and children’s feeding and changing supplies, and health and beauty products, has raised $32.5 million in new working capital.

The company sold a minority stake in the business to a group of investors including Reckitt Benckiser, a British multinational consumer goods company headquartered in Slough, England, with additional investments from McKesson Ventures, Sealed Air and The Emerson Group.

 

Pharmapacks has ambitious plans to reach $1 billion in annual online sales in as soon as four years.

Pharmapacks will use the funding to add about 70 jobs and grow its employee base from 350 workers to about 420, primarily for its 140,000-square-foot warehouse in Islandia, New York.

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Pharmapacks also will use the funding to add new technology, expand inventory and sell online in Asia and Europe.

“The fundraising, together with the associated partnerships, will enable us to scale operations both domestically and internationally as well as serve our customers in an even more efficient and cost-effective manner, while expanding the number of brands we can support,” says Pharmapacks CEO Andrew Vagenas.

Pharmapacks  generated web sales of $170 million in 2017. But web sales are on track to reach $270 million in 2018—and Pharmapacks has ambitious plans to reach $1 billion in annual online sales in as soon as four years, Vagenas says.

The company’s main expansion will happen with its emerging brands division, which features new health and wellness products from emerging designers and manufacturers and then sells those products on marketplaces including Amazon and eBay.

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“We take their brand, we launch them across all the sales channels, Amazon, Walmart, eBay and Jet, and we offer a ton of marketing capabilities,” Vagenas says. “We end up being their marketing arm as well. We have 31 brands rolled out—they’re all millennial brands created by millennial entrepreneurs. That’s going to be a big focus of ours.”

Pharmapacks’ inventory consists of 28,000 unique items, and the company processes and ships more than 30,000 orders daily across the the U.S. and Canada, Pharmapacks says.

 

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