Clinify, founded in 2020 by Michael Omidele to help digitise and centralise medical records across Africa’s healthcare system and improve patient outcomes, has raised $1.5 million USD in seed funding from Thin Air Labs, HaloHealth, and Calgary doctors. Clinify plans to launch its electronic medical record (EMR) platform in Africa this fall, beginning with Nigeria.
Clinify’s objective is to “digitally centralise health records” and increase access to healthcare in Africa. The platform of the early-stage firm intends to be a “one-stop-shop” that connects various healthcare sector stakeholders and supports a variety of services, including EMRs, billing, insurance, and telehealth.
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Clinify’s post-money valuation is $10 million CDN ($7.5 million USD), and the round increases Clinify’s total fundraising to $2.1 million, including a $100,000 pre-seed round from 2021.
Clinify’s technology has been used by over ten medical insurance companies, 130 healthcare providers, and 12,000 patients.
Omidele first arrived in Calgary in 2010, after his father sold everything to relocate his family to Canada from Nigeria. Soon after, the Clinify founder graduated from DeVry University with a computer networking engineering degree, landing a job with Dell as an information technology (IT) specialist during his studies.
Omidele joined IBM as an IT consultant in 2012, where he spent three years and helped oversee the networking configuration for Calgary’s newest hospital, South Health Campus. Following that, he spent nearly seven years as the statewide integration lead with AHS, Alberta’s provincial health authority. At AHS, he assisted with the integration of Epic’s electronic health record (EHR) technology into Alberta’s healthcare system.
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Following a personal tragedy, Omidele felt compelled to use what he had learned about data and health networks to make medical records more accessible and enhance healthcare delivery not only in Nigeria, but throughout Africa.
“It triggered me to just create something that would be beneficial for the continent at large,” said Omidele.
Omidele is a “mission-driven founder who can see the value he will deliver to millions of people once his vision comes to fruition,” according to Thin Air Labs managing partner James Lochrie, who has joined Clinify’s board as part of the round. Lochrie also noted that the Clinify founder’s “expertise in the industry and the market are also key elements that give Clinify an unfair advantage.”
The need to combat infectious diseases has up till now propelled some development towards EMRs in Africa. Sub-Saharan Africa, however, continues to lag behind other regions in the adoption of EMR, according to a 2017 paper that was published in the International Journal of Health Sciences.
According to research, the majority of Nigeria’s health records are still kept on paper today. “Adoption and utilisation of EMR in underdeveloped nations is not frequent and, in most circumstances, non-existent,” according to a 2022 paper published in Frontiers in Digital Health, noting that Nigeria’s adoption of them has been especially sluggish.
Lochrie noted that Clinify’s platform was specifically created to meet the needs of the local market, while also taking into account its current practises and constraints. “The developed world has been using health platforms like this for decades, while the majority of the African systems rely on outdated practises,” she said.
When Clinify was released late last year, Omidele built it over the course of nearly two years. Since launching, the firm has been able to grow by collaborating with some of Nigeria’s biggest health maintenance organisations or medical insurance groups.
Omidele asserts that Clinify has been able to move more fast thanks to this strategy than one of its more seasoned, unnamed competitors, which had its technology installed on a site-by-site basis.
As the firm strives to build up its current tech infrastructure and add additional features to its platform, Clinify is investing its seed money in geographic expansion and product development. The firm already has 20 employees after using this funding to hire another 15 people.
Omidele claims that the effect of his work with Alberta’s AHS, where he claimed the EHR system he created assisted in saving his dad’s life after a surgery, served as inspiration for his work with Clinify.
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“I’ve seen what happens in the healthcare system and [I’ve seen] that same patient lose their lives,” said Omidele, who believes the answer lies in more information. “This is a solution we should have had by now.”
Clinify Medical records Clinify Medical records
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