Many successful businessmen in India started their journey from scratch. Some did not have money to buy a pair of pants or slippers in their childhood. But later, they successfully built a company worth of crores. One such person is A Velumani or Arokiaswamy Velumani. He is the founder of Thyrocare Technologies Ltd. a chain of diagnostic and preventive care laboratories headquartered in Navi Mumbai.
He is a scientist-turned-entrepreneur, who built a zero-debt unicorn with an initial investment of around Rs 1 lakh. However, the 65-year-old sold (66 per cent stake) his company to PharmEasy for over Rs 4,500 crore in 2021. Velumani started Thyrocare in 1995 and has over 35 years of experience in diagnostics research and business. Today, the company has a market cap of Rs 4543 crore.
Despite years of experience, Velumani revealed, earlier this year, that he lost Rs 1400 crore after investing in a startup. Velumani added that he started his journey with Rs 500 in 1982. "I was an entrepreneur. Created a huge fortune. Now I am new as an investor and a big victim. As an individual investor, I Lost a record 1400 crs investing in a start up," he wrote on X.
He is the son of a landless farmer and grew up near Coimbatore in Tamil Nadu. After his graduation in chemistry University of Madras in 1978, Velumani’s career began with a job as a shift chemist at Gemini Capsules
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Later, Velumani also worked at BARC Mumbai for 15 years before starting his own firm in 1995. He used Rs 1 lakh from his provident fund and set up a testing facility in Byculla, a neighbourhood in South Mumbai, to detect thyroid disorders. The man is quite active on social media. He has 82.3K Followers on X and 2 million followers on Instagram.
