Imagine that you’re enjoying a family gathering when suddenly your sugar level spikes. You rush to the medicine drawer, only to realise you’re out of insulin. Panicked, you run from pharmacy to pharmacy trying to find it.
But unlike groceries or food, you can’t order your medicines online and get them within 10 minutes. For medicines, you often have to wait for a few hours.
“I couldn’t believe it. You can get tomatoes or onions in 10 minutes, but medicines, which are far more crucial, take forever,” said Rajat Gupta, founder of Repill, in an exclusive interview with Startup Pedia.
“In the US, prescriptions are sent directly from the doctor to the pharmacy. Here, it often becomes a bit of a hunt—visiting multiple pharmacies to get the medicines you need.”
Such situations are common across India. Parents watch helplessly as their children face sudden health scares in the middle of the night. Elderly people, often in pain, are forced to hop from pharmacy to pharmacy just because their essential medicines are out of stock.
For many, access to timely medication isn't just about convenience – it’s about survival.
To tackle this problem, Delhi-based entrepreneur Rajat Gupta launched an online medicine delivery platform called Repill in January 2025.
How does Repill work?
Repill is a Delhi-based online medicine delivery platform, functioning much like food delivery apps. Users can place orders for both prescription and non-prescription medicines and receive them in under 60 minutes – eliminating the hassle of searching multiple pharmacies.
Explaining how the platform works, Rajat said, in the Startup Pedia interview, “For prescription medicines, users have to upload a prescription. For non-prescription medicines, they can directly place an order.”
Once the request is made, Repill checks the availability of the listed medicines across various pharmacy stores within a 7–9 km radius of the user. Once availability is confirmed, the order is processed and delivered within 60 minutes through its delivery partners.
“We don’t operate from dark stores like other food, groceries or medicine delivery platforms. These local pharmacies are registered with us. That’s how we’re able to deliver medicines this quickly,” said Rajat.
He added that, unlike other online platforms that eat into the business of local retailers, Repill actually supports them. “We’re bringing them more business by making them a part of our system.”
Rajat Gupta, founder of Repill, wasn’t born into privilege. Growing up in Delhi, he watched his father, a self-made businessman, and his homemaker mother work hard to provide a stable life.
“Money wasn’t tight, but every rupee counted,” said the Delhi entrepreneur in the Startup Pedia interview.
Education became his passport to a more successful world. He studied at The Scindia School in Gwalior and secured a scholarship to study engineering at the University of Liverpool. He later pursued Computer Science at UC Santa Cruz in California.
Money was scarce in the early days—he cycled to class and took up odd jobs just to make ends meet. Eventually, he spent eight years in Silicon Valley, drawing a ₹1.5 crore salary, enjoying lucrative stock options, and living a life of comfort and luxury. Yet, something felt missing.
“I wasn’t happy just cashing checks. I wanted to build something real,” he said in the Startup Pedia interview.
While in the US, Rajat noticed how doctors could digitally send prescriptions directly to pharmacies, and patients could collect their medicines without running from pillar to post.
In India, however, handwritten prescriptions and medicine shortages are still the norm.
“I realized the gap. We Indians enjoy food delivery in 10 minutes, but when it comes to life-saving medicines, you often have to wait for more than a few hours. That realization sparked something in me. I wanted to build something meaningful that could ease the lives of millions.”
By July 2023, Rajat quit his US job and returned to India to build Repill from scratch.
Rajat raised undisclosed funding, and for nearly a year, he and his 12-member team worked relentlessly to bring the platform to life.
“It’s a big technology platform, and it took a lot of trial and error before we could officially launch it for the public in January 2025,” he told Startup Pedia.
Currently, Repill operates in Delhi, with a growing network of pharmacies, and has already delivered around 400 orders.
“We're soon launching in Noida, followed by Gurgaon, Bangalore, and Mumbai,” Rajat shared.
He added, at the end of Startup Pedia interview, “The real impact will come when we launch in Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities, where finding basic medicines is a daily struggle.”
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