BioCertica, which bills itself as the first African direct-to-consumer genetics company that use polygenic risk score (PRS) to provide DNA test results, has just raised a $1.6 million seed round following a $650 000 pre-seed investment.
According to BioCertica, PRS results enable the company to provide clients with a significantly higher resolution DNA result than was previously available on the market.
It improves the accuracy of diagnosing genetic susceptibility to disorders such as hypertension, gluten sensitivity, obesity, and heart disease, as well as determining an individual’s genetic propensity toward optimal vitamin D, cholesterol, and sleeping habits.
Read also Egyptian Electric Mobility Startup Shift EV Raises $9m To Scale Business
According to Gert van Wyk, founder and CEO of BioCertica, this technological innovation would enable African healthcare practitioners to obtain a greater understanding of their patients’ DNA via the BioCertica Practitioners Platform. This contributes to the advancement of preventative care and precision medicine.
BioCertica is a genetic testing platform that prioritizes user privacy and was released in August 2020. It presents a user’s customized genetic results through a purpose-built application that is available in all major app stores.
Ministry of Programming (MOP), the pre-seed round’s principal investor and technology partner, established and constructed bespoke genetic pipelines tailored to the African market. Previously, MOP was listed on the Financial Times’ FT1000 list of the fastest-growing firms in Europe.
Read also Revolutionalising Legal Practice With Technology
“At BioCertica, we think that prevention is preferable to cure; by utilizing Bio-Fintech tools, we empower our clients to make more informed lifestyle and health-related decisions on a daily basis. Meanwhile, our technological ecosystem safeguards our consumers’ privacy with bank-grade security standards and encryption,” Van Wyk asserts.
BioCertica presently offers a variety of lifestyle-based DNA test kits for nutrition and well-being, ancestry, fitness, weight management, cardiovascular health, skin care, and mental health, among other characteristics.
Read also Check Out 10 African Fintech Startups Selected For CATAPULT Inclusion Africa
According to Van Wyk, it gives value to people of all ages by equipping them with the knowledge necessary to live a better lifestyle. BioCertica offers a variety of collaboration opportunities.
Charles Rapulu Udoh
Charles Rapulu Udoh is a Lagos-based lawyer, who has several years of experience working in Africa’s burgeoning tech startup industry. He has closed multi-million dollar deals bordering on venture capital, private equity, intellectual property (trademark, patent or design, etc.), mergers and acquisitions, in countries such as in the Delaware, New York, UK, Singapore, British Virgin Islands, South Africa, Nigeria etc. He’s also a corporate governance and cross-border data privacy and tax expert.
As an award-winning writer and researcher, he is passionate about telling the African startup story, and is one of the continent’s pioneers in this regard. You can book a session and speak with him using the link: https://insightsbyexperts.com/view_expert/charles-rapulu-udoh