Africa Health Ventures #8: HealthTech Meets Health Financing
Your rundown of what's going on with health ventures in Africa
It may be summer in the Northern hemisphere, but it’s not slowing down for startups in Africa. In our 8th newsletter, we bring you 8 new investments, 8 opportunities, and 8 upcoming events for healthtech startups in Africa. No, I didn’t plan it this way, but it’s a good sign. 8 is a lucky number.
One trend we discuss below is the increase in partnerships between healthtech and health financing providers, a necessary evolution to address the health financing need in African markets. Read on to learn more.
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Deals
🗣Intron Health, a Nigerian AI company, has secured $1.6 million in pre-seed funding, led by Microtraction, to enhance natural language processing (NLP) transcription for healthcare workers. This helps medical professionals convert speech into text for medical records, significantly reducing paperwork, improving efficiency, and ensuring continuity of care. Read more about why we invested in Intron Health.
🏥 ALMA Clinics, a South African healthcare provider, received a $2.8 million investment from Alitheia IDF to expand its nurse-led primary healthcare clinics from 6 to 35 locations. Their clinics offer affordable and technology-enabled healthcare services targeting lower-income groups.
🛡️ South African safetech startup AURA raised $1.1 million in a bridge round led by HAVAÍC to expand AURA’s safety platform. AURA's technology connects users to the nearest private security and emergency medical response units.
🤰Kenyan startup Malaica secured pre-seed funding from Silicon Valley’s Kapor Capital to expand its pregnancy care platform. Malaica offers tailored pregnancy care plans and remote monitoring for expectant mothers, aiming to improve maternal health outcomes.
🧠Blueroomcare, a Nigerian healthtech startup, raised pre-seed funding from eha Impact Ventures to transform mental health care. The company provides remote consultations, digital prescriptions, and health monitoring through its platform.
📦Egyptian B2B pharmaceutical distribution startup iSupply has closed a pre-Series A round led by Disruptech. iSupply connects retailers with suppliers for inventory management and procurement.
🚚 EnvoyX received investment from Baobab Networks. The startup from Cote d’Ivoire is building tech to streamline healthcare payments processing.
💊 Online pharmacy OneHealth secured an undisclosed investment from Marula Square. OneHealth provides a suite of healthcare solutions for patients, pharmacies, and insurers to enable access to healthcare products in Nigeria.
News
Several partnerships were launched recently between healthtech companies and health financing providers, including Viebeg, YeneHealth, and RecoMed. This is a positive trend we are monitoring closely, as healthcare providers need to provide more flexible and modern financing options to the African consumer in order to reach populations at scale:
The Bank of Kigali has introduced a Medical Equipment Financing (MEF) product to help both private and public health facilities in Rwanda access necessary medical equipment. Partnering with VIEBEG Medical, the bank offers up to 80% financing without collateral and a repayment period of over five years. Read more about the value we see in this kind of healthtech and health financing partnership.
YeneHealth has partnered with VisionFund Microfinance (an affiliate of World Vision) to provide financial services designed for women's health needs in Ethiopia. The initiative offers microloans to help women afford healthcare expenses.
South African health insurance startup Kaelo Health has partnered with RecoMed to simplify access to virtual healthcare services through a centralized platform. Kaelo Health offers low-cost health insurance solutions, while RecoMed, an online healthcare marketplace, facilitates booking and connecting patients with healthcare providers.
Other notable healthtech news for Africa this past month:
📖 Leading Innovations Enabling Health Product Access in Africa is a new market intelligence report released by Salient Advisory. It spotlights 20+ leading digitally-enabled innovators transforming access to health products across Africa including many Pendulum, Zipline, Kasha, mPedigree, and Maisha Meds.
📖 Navigating the Aftermath, a whitepaper by OneHealth in Nigeria, unpacks the fallout of pharmaceutical withdrawals and drug shortages in Nigeria. It points to the role of local innovation to address the needs of a stable drug supply chain.
The HealthTech Hub Innovation Challenge 2024 announced 7 winners from across the continent at the 4th Africa Digital Health Summit in Lagos. These included Helium Health from Nigeria, Emergency Response Africa from Nigeria, eFiche from Rwanda, MedTrack from Ghana, Aurora Health Systems from Kenya, HealthX from Kenya, Afya Intelligence from Tanzania
GIF Growth The U.S. International Development Finance Corporation has provided a $10 million loan to the Global Innovation Fund (GIF) to support early-stage businesses in Sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia, and Southeast Asia. This funding aims to de-risk high-impact companies, attracting further investments to help these startups scale and maximize their positive impact.
The latest Google Startups Accelerator Africa cohort features 10 startups from across the continent using AI to solve various challenges, including 2 companies tackling healthcare:
CDIAL AI from Nigeria uses AI to enhance multilingual information systems, aiming to improve healthcare and trade across Africa.
LifeStein Health from Rwanda focuses on improving overall wellness with programs covering physical, mental, and nutritional health.
Khuwaylid Capital has launched its first Islamic impact investment fund in Francophone Africa, focusing on Senegal. This €8 million fund aims to support small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in sectors like healthcare, agribusiness, and education.
Events
Aug 28-30 in Nairobi: The 2nd annual Transforming African Medtech Conference is hosted by Villgro Africa and Jaza Rift Ventures.
Sept 3-4 in Nairobi: AfricArena Nairobi Summit 2024 features pitches from 20+ startups operating across Africa between the seed and growth stage.
Sept 19-20 in Cape Town: The SA Innovation Summit convenes startups, investors, corporates, and policy makers.
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 impat 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 brings together public health experts, researchers, policymakers, and stakeholders to discuss critical issues and advancements in public health in Africa.
Opportunities for Startups
Due Aug 14: The Twilio.org Climate Tech Prize awards $1 million to innovative technology solutions that enhance climate resilience for vulnerable communities, including healthcare resilience. Five winners will each receive $200,000 to support their projects, which must focus on mitigating, preparing for, responding to, or recovering from climate change impacts. The prize emphasizes equity-free funding to empower tech-forward nonprofits and early-stage companies in their mission to address immediate and long-term climate challenges.
Due Aug 14: The Africa Leadership Accelerator by Global Health Corps is a 9-month hybrid program designed to enhance the leadership and management skills of early to mid-career health professionals in Sub-Saharan Africa. Targeting professionals from Malawi, Rwanda, Uganda, and Zambia, the program offers training, mentorship, and networking opportunities to support career growth and resilience in the health sector. Applications for the first cohort are open until August 14th, 2024.
Due Aug 16: FIND (the Foundation for Innovative New Diagnostics) has issued a request for proposals for Good clinical laboratory practice (GCLP) assessment and training for five health facilities across West Africa.
Due Aug 19: RIGHT Foundation’s Product Development Award general call seeks proposals aimed at developing vaccines, therapeutics, biologics, or diagnostic platforms to alleviate infectious diseases or non-communicable diseases in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). Deadline is 31 December 2024 and maximum funding is KRW 4B (approximately 3M USD).
Due Aug 23: The Lacuna Fund's Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR) 2024 RFP focuses on funding projects that create, expand, or improve datasets to combat antimicrobial resistance in low- and middle-income countries. Eligible applicants must propose work in these regions, and the deadline for proposal submissions is August 23, 2024. The initiative supports local data scientists, researchers, and social entrepreneurs in developing datasets that address urgent health issues related to AMR.
Due Aug 29: The Vesalius Innovation Award by Karger Publishers celebrates groundbreaking medical and scientific advancements by early-stage startups. The 2024 edition invites entrepreneurs focused on science communications, offering a grand prize of $15,000 and additional support like mentoring and media exposure. This award aims to highlight innovative solutions in areas like AI, education, information transfer, new business models in publishing, and research integrity.
Due Sept 15: FIND has issued a call for proposals to evaluate innovative TB diagnostics and testing strategies.
Due Feb 28 2025: FIND has issued a request for information for computer-aided detection (CAD) software that provides tuberculosis (TB) screening or triage.
Oct 2024 Cohort Launch: The Baobab Network will invest 100K into 25 African startups admitted to its accelerator program in 2024. Applications are accepted on a rolling basis.
Ongoing: Fund for Innovation in Development Grant Program. The Fund for Innovation in Development (FID) is inviting innovators and researchers from around the world to apply for grant funding to more effectively or efficiently address poverty.
Ongoing: ALX helps first-time tech founders go from idea to impact. Past graduates include YeneHealth in Ethiopia and HealthTracka in Nigeria.
Ongoing: The Catalyst Fund by the Roddenberry Foundation provides grants ranging from $2,500 to $15,000 for individuals or groups globally, supporting early-stage ideas and projects aimed at addressing global challenges.
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