Medikabazaar: The hospital behind the hospital

The story begins with dialysis. Vivek Tiwari’s grandmother needed treatment in a smaller Indian town, where access to the necessary facilities and supplies was difficult. In his public account of Medikabazaar’s origins, the question was painfully practical: why should geography decide whether the equipment for routine care was available?

That question leads somewhere less glamorous than the operating theatre. It leads to the purchase order, the distributor, the stockroom. A doctor’s ability to treat someone depends on a chain of people who never appear in the consultation. Medikabazaar, launched in 2015 by Tiwari and Ketan Malkan, made that chain its business.

01 / THE MISSING PIECEA marketplace with a stockroom problem

The customers are hospitals, clinics, nursing homes, laboratories, diagnostic centres and dental practices. British International Investment’s historical investment profile counted 18,000-20,000 healthcare-provider customers. Roughly 60% were outside metropolitan cities. Those dated figures describe the opportunity particularly well: a small facility needs dependable supplies without having the purchasing muscle of a hospital chain.

Medikabazaar puts product discovery and comparison online. Its mobile app offers specification searches, bulk quotation requests, repeat ordering and delivery tracking. Buyers can compare alternatives before contacting a seller; suppliers gain another route to institutional customers. An instrument catalogue becomes a working purchasing tool.

The commercial model also includes trading and distribution. Company materials describe an online front end supported by assisted selling. That detail matters. A procurement manager buying equipment needs answers about suitability and service, alongside a price. Software shortens the search; people still help close the purchase.

02 / THE QUANTITY QUESTIONHow many boxes are enough?

Finding a supplier solves only part of the problem. A hospital must decide how much to order. Too little creates shortages. Too much leaves money sitting on shelves, sometimes approaching an expiry date. Purchasing is a prediction disguised as paperwork.

VIZI, launched in 2019, addressed this calculation through AI and machine learning. Historical descriptions explain that hospitals supply consumption data and receive projections of their requirements. Medikabazaar’s FY2020-21 report described an unnamed 500-bed Bengaluru hospital managing 7,500 product codes. The useful detail is the number of separate decisions: thousands of items, each with its own rhythm.

The wider suite included MBGO delivery, MBARC equipment servicing and asset management, and Freedom financing through lending partners. These offerings reveal the company’s expertise in connecting procurement tasks. A local distributor or direct manufacturer relationship may be preferable for a particular purchase. Medikabazaar’s appeal is the ability to handle several categories and related jobs together.

“Why can’t we have dialysis centres and facilities in smaller towns of India?”

VIVEK TIWARI / DESCRIBING THE ORIGINAL QUESTION, 2019

03 / BUYING TIMEThe scanner needs a payment schedule

A diagnostic scanner raises a different obstacle. The equipment may exist; the buyer may still struggle to pay for it. Medikabazaar’s collaboration with United Imaging began in late 2019. By April 2024, the manufacturer reported more than 300 installations across India through the partnership.

The Krsnaa Diagnostics agreement makes the financial component concrete. A 2024 announcement described a programme exceeding ₹300 crore for more than 30 planned imaging centres. In February 2025, Krsnaa disclosed machinery orders with 10% payable upfront and the remaining cost spread over six years. Those were partnership-specific terms, rather than a universal Medikabazaar offer.

This is where the marketplace meets the balance sheet. Distribution helps equipment reach a facility. Financing can make the purchase possible sooner. For another operator, the result depends on agreed credit terms, repayment capacity and enough demand to justify the machine. A payment schedule cannot manufacture patients.

04 / THE INTERNAL INVENTORYGrowth needed better controls

Building the network required capital. Medikabazaar raised $75 million in September 2021 and $65 million in April 2022. The announced purposes included technology, distribution and international expansion. Together, that is $140 million raised across two rounds, rather than a measure of what the company spent.

Then its own records came under scrutiny. Reporting linked a December 2023 whistleblower complaint to forensic audits, concerns about inflated revenue and inventory, an auditor’s resignation and restated financials. Tiwari disputed allegations of financial misreporting and challenged his removal. Dinesh Lodha became group CEO in August 2024.

The failure exposed in this period was financial oversight. For a business selling inventory discipline, questions about its own stock and accounts were especially damaging. The subsequent reset changed the commercial priorities too. In November 2025, Lodha described closing loss-making activities, including a value procurement optimiser vertical, while expanding exclusive distribution rights and own-brand products.

That is an observable change of course. Exclusive rights can give a distributor greater pricing control; own brands offer another route to margins. The practical lesson is to examine what each line of business earns and reconcile the records behind it. More orders are useful only if the economics and the accounts hold together.

05 / THE NEXT ORDERA quarter is a result. A year is a promise.

In February 2026, Medikabazaar announced discussions to raise $50 million, with $25 million committed by existing investors. In July, it reported ₹592 crore in first-quarter FY2026-27 revenue, up 57% year on year, and reiterated a ₹3,000 crore annual target. The proposed financing and annual ambition remain different from completed transactions and reported quarterly performance.

For buyers, the useful habit is to evaluate the whole purchase: quantity, delivery, servicing and payment terms. Forecasting needs usable data; deliveries need dependable execution. Medikabazaar’s original insight survives these conditions. A hospital’s capacity to care depends, in part, on what reaches its door.