Shashank Rai, an ISM/IIT Dhanbad and IIM Calcutta alumnus with 13+ years of supply chain expertise, including leadership stints at Flipkart, Shadowfax, Udaan, and Tata Steel-first crossed paths with Saquib Ali at Udaan.

Saquib, a seasoned entrepreneur, engineering graduate, and former golf player, brought over 13 years of experience in scaling businesses, having founded two startups and held leadership roles at MediBuddy, Toppr, and Udaan.

At Udaan, Shashank led operations across Uttar Pradesh. Saquib helmed business development for the region. What began as a professional collaboration soon laid the groundwork for a shared vision that would one day become DocPharma.

Post Udaan, Shashank joined Flipkart and Saquib moved to Medibuddy, before both relocated to Bengaluru and launched DocPharma.

The launch of DocPharma wasn’t written in a business plan or pitch deck, they began during the chaos of India’s first COVID-19 lockdown. Trapped in an apartment complex of 1,500 flats, Shashank Rai and Saquib Ali noticed a troubling pattern. Residents had no reliable access to medicines.

“We tied up with a couple of pharmacy stores where we did a pro bono delivery of medicines,” Shashank recalls.

Orders came through WhatsApp. The duo personally handled logistics. What started as an act of necessity turned into a live test of demand. 

“From just those 1,500 flats, we generated around Rs 5 lakh in monthly business,” Saquib says.

“This was all self-funded, and purely designed to help people. But the insight was clear, medicine delivery wasn’t just broken; it was decades behind in infrastructure.”

The arrival of Sagar Chauhan as Founder and CPTO at DocPharma reads like a startup fairytale. In the early days of 2025, Shashank and Saquib were battling tech delays from an outsourced team of old friends and colleagues, slowing down their vision. Then came an unexpected LinkedIn message. “I had posted about building DocPharma when Sagar, my junior from ISM/IIT Dhanbad, pinged, asking if I needed any help,” recalls Shashank.

What seemed like chance quickly turned crucial. With eight years as a CTO, having built and scaled multiple ventures from scratch like Pidge, SaveIN, DigiChal, Samsung and PayU. Sagar was more than a well-wisher. Despite his packed schedule, he hopped on a late-night journey from Delhi to Bengaluru.

One message, one meeting, and the future of DocPharma’s tech was rewritten.