Singaporean Investor Leads $659k Funding Round In South African E-health Startup, VitruvianMD

VitruvianMD, a South African e-health business, has raised an eight-figure ZAR fundraising round — at least ZAR10 million (US$659,000) — to scale its technology and launch further pilots.

The Singapore-based Verge Healthtech Fund spearheaded VitruvianMD’s eight-figure ZAR investment round, which also included a number of angel investors. 

Ifthakaar Shaik, VitruvianMD’s co-founder and chief executive officer (CEO).
Ifthakaar Shaik, VitruvianMD’s co-founder and chief executive officer (CEO).

The funding will be used to help the startup expedite the development of its technology and fund the launch of new pilots. The startup also plans to use the funding to commercialise at least one of its diagnostic modules within the next 18 months.

Read also: Kenya-based Health-tech Startup BYON8 Raises $1.5m Seed Round For African Expansion

“The core of our business is delivering AI-powered diagnostic software into under-resourced areas, and to date we have built a platform that enables this in various fields of pathology. To further facilitate access, we have also developed a low-cost, high quality camera that can retrofit any microscope instantly enabling digital tele-pathology,” Ifthakaar Shaik, VitruvianMD’s co-founder and chief executive officer (CEO). 

A Look At What The Startup Does

VitruvianMD, which was founded last year, combines biomedical engineering and cutting-edge artificial intelligence (AI) to provide medical laboratories with affordable, high-accuracy diagnostic tools, with a particular focus on emerging countries.

“Our platform is robust enough to be utilised in any form of microscopy based diagnostics, and is proved by our pilots in haematology, histopathology, fertility and parasitology.”

VitruvianMD health VitruvianMD health

Charles Rapulu Udoh

Charles Rapulu Udoh is a Lagos-based lawyer who has advised startups across Africa on issues such as startup funding (Venture Capital, Debt financing, private equity, angel investing etc), taxation, strategies, etc. He also has special focus on the protection of business or brands’ intellectual property rights ( such as trademark, patent or design) across Africa and other foreign jurisdictions.
He is well versed on issues of ESG (sustainability), media and entertainment law, corporate finance and governance.
He is also an award-winning writer