VC, funding, Drugs
Two Highland Funds Join Forces to Lead $20 Million Funding Round for Pharmaca Retail Chain
Robert Buderi 3/26/08
Envision a drug store where conventional prescriptions, treatments, and toiletries are co-mingled with natural health care products and you have the core vision behind Pharmaca Integrative Pharmacy. Right now, the Boulder, CO-based retail chain has just 20 stores, but it plans to grow fast—adding another dozen stores per year. And two local venture funds, Highland Capital Partners VII and the Highland Consumer Fund, have joined forces with Physic Ventures of San Francisco to provide $20 million in growth capital to enable Pharmaca to carry out its aggressive expansion plans, the firms announced today.
We wrote about Pharmaca in December, as part of a profile of the new Highland Consumer Fund. As the fund’s managing general partner, Ted Philip, said about Pharmaca at the time, “they’re doing to the conventional pharmacy industry what Whole Foods did to the traditional supermarket industry.”
The consumer fund was formed last year. The Pharmaca investment is being shared with Highland Capital Partners VII because Pharmaca’s business lines up with Highland’s traditional interest in healthcare. Philip said that both funds are investing equally in the Colorado company.
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