DocFarma, pharmaceutical telecare arrives with Nuclio

The thousand pharmacies operating in Barcelona are the priority target of DocFarma, a startup based on pharmaceutical teleassistance, which has been developed hand in hand with the startup factory Nuclio, led by entrepreneur Carlos Blanco.

DocFarma was born from the project of pharmacist and entrepreneur Tania Rodríguez, and her partners Alfons Mengual and Elisabeth Martínez, to strengthen the relationship between patients and pharmacies through an application that improves and adds services for the end user. From ordering medicines and parapharmacy items for collection at the establishment (Click & Collect) or for delivery to the place of residence by a home assistant, to consultation and medical assistance from the pharmacist if the user has health problems.

In addition, the application allows pharmacists and patients to interact and monitor the correct administration of treatments, "something very essential among chronic patients," Tania Rodríguez points out.

"Our goal is to democratize healthcare so that everyone can access medicines and home care regardless of their economic and social situation," says Tania Rodríguez. "There are many groups, such as single mothers or people with mobility problems, who cannot organize themselves to pick up the medication they need or do not have the economic resources to afford an assistant, so they are unfairly unprotected," she explains.

For now, the development of the idea has required an investment of 500,000 euros and has the support of Nuclio, through Carlos Blanco and Ernest Sánchez, managing partner of the accelerator. With the business already launched since early 2022, DocFarma is already planning a second round of financing to raise one million euros, which should facilitate growth in other cities.

The objective for its first year of operation is to serve 200 pharmacies in Barcelona, and register about 10,000 users, with a number of orders close to 12,000. The growth plan determines that by the end of 2023, capillarity would be higher, with presence inside and outside Barcelona, reaching 600 pharmacies, 30,000 users, and 70,000 orders. These figures highlight one of the platform's main objectives: to become a customer loyalty tool.

According to its promoters, the company also reduces healthcare spending because the customer locates the medicine through the app in the nearest pharmacy, instead of requesting shipment from anywhere in the country, which is the most common operation and leads to poor management of product stock, its cost, and accessibility. In addition, the fact that home deliveries are made by a professional on foot from a nearby point also reduces the ecological footprint.

A 10 million fund for emerging projects

DocFarma is the latest of many startups that Nuclio has supported for their development and subsequent growth. To continue with this task, the accelerator has announced the creation of a new 10 million euro fund to invest in the group's companies.

Investment tickets will be between 50,000 and 150,000 euros for the venture builder companies that are in their initial phase of development and to group many individual investors who were already co-investing with Nuclio. In addition, the fund will have priority to enter as a shareholder of these startups, which operate in sectors such as fintech, proptech, healthtech, and edtech. In recent years, Nuclio has contributed to the development of business projects such as Housfy, Akamon, or Glovo.