Africa Health Ventures #9: It's Tough Out There
August was a dry month for healthcare startups in Africa
The August slowdown is real. This was true not just for healthcare but across all sectors. This happens against the backdrop of a continued decline in investments in Africa, including a significant drop in foreign investments and in particular from North America.
If you’re an entrepreneur searching for runway to prove Africa’s next great innovation, you have a long road ahead. But don’t lose heart. Opportunity exists if you know where to look. Below we highlight 12 new opportunities for healthcare startups; a flurry of relevant upcoming events for founders and investors; and other global awards and recognitions for African healthcare startups.
Investors and donors, don’t miss our founder’s recent interview with the Health Finance Coalition, where she highlight the immense potential alongside the challenges of investing in healthcare for Africa.
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News
Mulago Foundation announced its 2024 Rainer Arnhold Fellows. Each will receive $100K of funding and support to develop their strategy for scale. Mulago takes a bold and refreshing approach to providing unrestricted funding to high-impact organizations. You can listen to our 2021 interview with Mulago’s CEO, Kevin Starr. 2024’s winners include:
Folake Owodunni at Emergency Response Africa: Emergency transport of the right people, to the right places, at the right time in Nigeria.
Klau Chmielowska at Lafiya Nigeria: Rural distribution of self-injectable contraception to decrease maternal mortality in Nigeria.
Nasser Diallo at Clinic+O: Public-private-partnerships to provide professionalized community health and telemedicine to get high quality healthcare to people in Guinea and beyond.
Neo Hutiri at Pelebox: Smart lockers for chronic medication distribution to improve health for people living with chronic illnesses in South Africa, Namibia and Botswana.
The recent Transforming African MedTech Conference in Nairobi awarded several early-stage medtech startups:
The Overall Winner was NeoNest by Che Innovations, a device designed to address neonatal hypothermia during the transportation of preterm infants in Uganda
The Most Promising Technology went to Kunamandla Enterprises, a palm-sized point-of-care test device incorporating TB and HIV biomarkers in a single-use, rapid, quantifiable, blood-based test.
The People's Choice Award went to Mari Test, a non-invasive AI-powered portable diagnostic device for malaria.
Bena Care is on a roll. Not only were they named this month among the prestigious winners of the Echoing Green Fellowship, they also announced an investment from Madiro. Bena Care provides home-based healthcare that reduces healthcare costs by 52% compared to hospital care while increasing patient satisfaction. Madiro is a philanthropic impact investment fund that supports early stage healthcare entrepreneurs in Africa.
EnvoyX in Côte d'Ivoire received an undisclosed investment from the Baobab Network. EnvoyX streamlines payments processing for healthcare services.
EHA Clinics has signed an agreement with Edo State’s Primary Health Care Development Agency in Nigeria to improve primary healthcare services in the state. The partnership aims to drive universal healthcare access in the state, leverage expertise and management services from EHA Clinics. EHA Clinics operates a network of digitally-enabled private primary healthcare clinics, delivering services through in-person consultations, telemedicine, and medicine delivery.
Jacaranda Health in Kenya has expanded its open-source Large Language Model (LLM) to include five African languages. This LLM has been integrated into Jacaranda Health’s digital health assistant platform, PROMPTS. Jacaranda Health provides digitally-enabled maternal health services to women in underserved communities.
Founders Factory Africa, an African venture capital firm with several investments in healthcare, has rebranded itself as 54 Collective.
Events
Sept 1-4 in Nairobi: AfricArena Nairobi Summit 2024 features pitches from 20+ startups operating across Africa between the seed and growth stage.
Sept 18 in Cape Town: Applications are now open for the final Startup Club ZA Showcase where 14 startups will pitch to the country’s leading VC’s, angel networks, corporates and ecosystem enablers.
Sept 19-20 in Cape Town: The SA Innovation Summit convenes startups, investors, corporates, and policy makers.
Oct 7-9 in London: AFSIC – Investing in Africa is an annual conference focused on facilitating investment into Africa by connecting investors with business leaders and opportunities across the continent.
Oct 9-10 in Ingelheim, Germany: Making More Health Together from Boehringer Ingelheim and Ashoka convenes entrepreneurs, impact investors, NGOs, foundations, governmental organizations, academia, industry to identify new and better ways of improving health globally for underserved communities
Oct 22-24 in Cape Town: Africa Health showcases medical equipment, services, and technologies.
Oct 23-24 in Amsterdam: The Global Impact Investing Network Forum 2024 convenes the global institutional impact investing community.
Oct 28-30 in San Francisco: SOCAP brings together global innovators, investors, entrepreneurs, and social impact leaders to discuss and advance solutions for a more sustainable and equitable world.
Oct 29-31 in Kigali: The Africa HealthTech Summit takes place alongside the Mobile World Congress and the HealthTech Hub Investor Summit. It brings together stakeholders including healthtech startups, large corporations, government, donors, investors, and other stakeholders.
Nov 26-29 in Rabat, Morocco: The International Conference on Public Health in Africa (CPHIA) brings together public health experts, researchers, policymakers, and stakeholders to discuss critical issues and advancements in public health in Africa.
Opportunities for Startups
Due Sep 7: Plug and Play's Cairo Program is an innovation platform connecting Egyptian startups with global resources, mentorship, and networking opportunities. The program focuses on fostering local entrepreneurship and supporting startups in industries like fintech, health tech, and smart cities.
Due Sep 13: Johns Hopkins Center for Global Digital Health Innovation is calling for innovators to submit solutions that address pressing public health challenges using digital tools. Applicants will benefit from monitoring and evaluation support of their digital health innovation.
Due Sept 14: The START Fellowship is a six-month program designed to support entrepreneurs from emerging markets by providing them with mentorship, training, and access to a global network of investors and industry experts.
Due Sept 15: FIND has issued a call for proposals to evaluate innovative TB diagnostics and testing strategies.
Due Sep 30: Accelerate Africa offers African startups the chance to scale through mentorship, networking, and funding opportunities, with up to $100,000 in funding available for selected participants.
Due Sept 30: The Future of Capitalism Competition supports tech founders with world-changing ideas with investments of up to $1M USD.
Due Oct 6: UNDP's Timbuktoo HealthTech Startup Accelerator Program is calling for applications from African healthtech startups to join a 6-month accelerator focused on boosting innovation in healthcare across the continent. The program offers mentorship, funding, and access to a network of industry experts to help startups scale and impact healthcare delivery.
Due Oct 11: Johnson & Johnson's Amplifying Access to Mental Health Innovation Challenge aims to support innovators developing new solutions for mental health access, particularly in low-resource settings. The challenge provides funding, mentorship, and potential partnerships to help bring these mental health innovations to life.
Due Oct 15: Innovest Afrika - Innovest Ignite is a platform that supports early-stage startups across Africa with seed funding of up to $50,000, along with mentorship and access to a network of investors and industry experts.
Due Dec 31: The SwedBio Collaboration Grant typically provides small grants on the order of 50K USD to locally-driven, sustainable solutions addressing Food & Health among other topics
Due Dec 31: Gray Matters Capital's coLABS provides 50K to 250K in revenue-share investments to early stage social enterprises supporting women and girls globally.
A variety of opportunities have been issued by Breakthrough T1D for startups tackling innovation to support type 1 diabetes.
Ongoing: Renew Venture Lab applications are open for ventures in Ethiopia, Uganda, Rwanda, Kenya, Tanzania, Zambia, Sudan and Mozambique. Participants gain mentorship from an experienced investment team and access to a network of partners and investors. Selected startups receive funding ranging from $50K to $300K.
Why Africa? Why Healthcare? Why Now? A Conversation with our Founder, Rowena Luk
Africa Health Ventures’ Managing Partner, Rowena Luk, recently spoke with the Health Finance Coalition about why we do what we do to support healthtech startups in Africa. Read the full interview here.
Rowena states: “The private sector is the natural space for experimentation and the birthplace of innovation. If we can build, de-risk, and scale innovations in the private sector, not only does that mean better healthcare; it means businesses that are directly accountable to African consumers; it means creating jobs and keeping talent in Africa; it means long-term sustainability and ownership of such innovations; and it means these validated innovations can still be transferred with lower risk towards scalable public health systems.”
The Health Finance Coalition is a diverse group of organizations including The Rockefeller Foundation, The Skoll Foundation, USAID, the World Bank, the Global Fund, and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. These partners work together to pool resources, share expertise, and drive investments in health innovations aimed at improving healthcare access and outcomes in low- and middle-income countries.
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We’ll be back in a month with our next roundup. See you then!