Elevate Now: End-to-End Analysis of a Pre-Regulatory GLP-1 Bet

Harshit took on the Elevate Now deal at a point where GLP-1 drugs had no regulatory framework in India. The drug was not legally available in the country, yet the startup was already prescribing it to patients who could import it privately. The investment thesis required building conviction on a market that did not yet formally exist.

Understanding the Drug and the Market

He started by mapping the global GLP-1 landscape from the ground up, reviewing medical reports spanning five to ten years to assess drug safety, side-effect profiles, and long-term outcomes. He then went beyond published research and conducted direct SME interviews with doctors and researchers from Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk, asking questions that founders and third-party reports could not answer: whether the drug would be affordable in India, whether the Indian medical network would support it, and what the realistic side-effect picture looked like at scale.

Those conversations surfaced a key insight: Eli Lilly indicated that Indian pricing would be significantly lower than US pricing, making the drug viable for a much broader population than the purchase-power-parity gap would suggest. Combined with data showing that obesity affects a large and growing share of the Indian population, this gave the team a credible market entry thesis.

Building the Unit Economics Case

Elevate Now was running at roughly minus 60% EBITDA at the time of evaluation, with marketing as the dominant cost driver. Financial due diligence was being handled by a third party, but Harshit built an independent CAC-LTV model to verify the unit economics from the team's own perspective.

The model was complex: the platform had multiple onboarding price points, a seven-day trial at a low entry price with upsell paths to three-, six-, and twelve-month programs, heavy reliance on Meta ads, and significant discount structures. He modeled not just the current CAC-LTV but also projected how the ratio would shift as the platform scaled and Meta ad dependency reduced. Multiple calls with the founders were needed to pressure-test the assumptions.

Designing and Running User Research

Harshit designed a structured user survey to gather direct feedback from Elevate Now customers. The questionnaire covered program duration, overall satisfaction, coach interaction frequency, doctor call cadence, and open-ended prompts for what the platform did well and where it fell short.

The findings challenged the team's initial assumption that price sensitivity was the primary risk. Customers were willing to pay. The real pain points were inconsistency in coach quality and the absence of a structured post-program support path. He compiled these findings into a single document and fed them back to the founders as concrete product recommendations.

Presenting to the IC

Two of the three IC partners were skeptical. The regulatory gap was the central objection. Harshit and the team built the IC presentation around three layers of evidence: the global track record of GLP-1 drugs, the primary research from SME interviews, and the internal user survey data. They also ran informal surveys within the office, asking colleagues above a 30 BMI threshold whether they would consider the drug, and found strong interest.

The IC moved to conviction. The firm invested, and also participated in a subsequent bridge round.