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Health-tech Platform In Egypt Vezeeta Raises Series E round, Totaling Nearly $90M

October 12, 2022

Vezeeta, a digital platform for healthcare, has successfully completed its Series E investment round, increasing the total amount of money it has raised to around $90 million.

Two years ago, Vezeeta secured $40 million in a Series D investment round, bringing the company’s total funding to over $63 million. The additional capital, the amount of which has not been revealed, was headed by Gulf Capital, located in Abu Dhabi, and VNV Global, based in Sweden.

Amir Barsoum, founder and CEO of Vezeeta

According to a statement released by the firm, the newly raised funds would be used to assist fund “imminent mergers and acquisitions agreements across MEA (the Middle East and Africa)” as part of the company’s expansion objectives.

Why The Investors Invested

The business claims that it has arrived at the milestone of becoming profitable, but it does not provide any additional information regarding the earnings. “Vezeeta is now ready to lead its expansion into new goods and hunt for acquisitions across the area,” it further noted. “Vezeeta is now set to spearhead its expansion into new products.”

It established a number of important growth drivers, one of which was the Doctor’s Subscription Model, which is a subscription-based SaaS model that provides digital healthcare solutions. Additionally, it provided its pharmacy service, which included home delivery within 60 minutes in select locations.

According to the firm, as of today, the solution has seen a surge in prescription orders that is five times more than before and has spread to Cairo, Giza, and Alexandria. Integration of electronic prescriptions and tracking of users’ geolocations are now available as well.

“It took seven years for our healthcare marketplace to acquire the trust of five million patients. In contrast, our digital provider vertical, including online pharmacy and digitally-managed clinics, has achieved the same mark in less than two years,” explained Amir Barsoum, founder and CEO of Vezeeta.

A Look At What The Startup Does

Vezeeta was established in 2012 by Barsoum, and it currently enables over ten million people to search for and make appointments with their healthcare providers based on evaluations and ratings left by actual patients.

Patients have the ability to arrange appointments for in-clinic, virtual, or at-home consultations through the use of the app. Other aspects of the pharmacy solution include the ability to schedule a collection of test samples, the ordering of drugs, and the scheduling of home delivery appointments.

The Vezeeta network currently consists of 50,000 medical professionals and processes seven million transactions each year. At the moment, it does business in eighty cities spread over six countries, including Kenya, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Lebanon, and Jordan.

With a market size evaluated at $181 billion in 2021, it is anticipated that the industry would reach a size of more than $1 trillion by 2030, increasing at a compound annual growth rate of 21.6%. The global market for digital health is gaining steam.

African Data Startup Stears Raises $3.3M In Seed Round

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

Despite Threats, Egypt’s Vezeeta Expands Into ePharmacy, Plans To Pour $25m Into Egyptian Market

February 3, 2021

Easily the most funded healthtech startup in Africa, and a strong example of the success of telemedicine on the continent, Egyptian digital healthcare platform, Vezeeta, has added a deal breaker — an ePharmacy solution — barely a month after launching its first sub-Saharan operations in Kenya. The new ePharmacy solution will allow users to order prescription medications through the Vezeeta mobile app.

“We first digitally integrated doctors within our healthcare ecosystem, and now we are doing the same for pharmacists,” said Maha Melhem, Vice President of ePharmacy at Vezeeta. “Our pharmacists receive excellent training and compensation to ensure a fulfilling experience for every user, every time they log onto the Vezeeta app.”

*Amir Barsoum, founder of Vezeeta. Photo credit: Vezeeta*

Apart from the launch of the major disruptor, Vezeeta, through its founder and CEO, Amir Barsoum has also announced plans to pour over $25m into its Egyptian market this year. All moves are coming as the coronavirus gave the African ehealth sector a record-breaking 2020.

“A year ago, the market in Egypt was not receptive to tele-consultation options and there was little support for the idea and very little uptake from the patients’ side as well as the doctors themselves,” Barsoum told Ahram Online, a local news media. “COVID-19, however, has educated everybody that you can get high-quality healthcare remotely.”

A Battle Wages On Behind The Scene

Vezeeta’s latest move brings with it a cascade of controversies. On the one hand is Egyptian Pharmacists’ Syndicate, which has continuously called for outright ban on online drug sales. The syndicate is serious about the call for ban. It has recently instituted series of reports before Egypt’s Public Prosecutor against a number of applications and online platforms for not playing by industry rules. Last year, the syndicate frustrated investment by Ibnsina Pharma of over $1.8 million into 3elagi tech, a startup which facilitates the searching, comparison and acquisition of healthcare products and services across Egypt. Ibnsina, which is itself a pharmaceutical distribution company helping to distribute products from over 350 Egyptian and multinational companies to more than 35,000 Egyptian customers, said it had to withdraw the investment following the call for boycott of its products and filing of multiple lawsuits against it by the syndicate.

Vezeeta looks unbothered, though. Apart from collaborating with the Egyptian ministry of health on projects implementation, CEO Barsoum said Vezeeta has nothing to worry about the syndicate’s renewed activism.

“We are 100 percent committed to Egyptian law,” he told Ahram. “We do not send any drugs that have not come out of a licensed pharmacy in the market. We never rely on distribution centres or warehouses. We are not competing with pharmacists at all, but we are a healthcare tech provider company that is working on automating the whole industry.”

Barsoum further said Vezeeta was not breaching the law by taking this action, and that laws in Egypt should actually support this kind of system and push forward prescriptions that improve the quality of the healthcare service in the market and, in return, criminalise hand-written prescriptions as is the case in Europe and the US, where hand-writing prescriptions is penalised.

“We are pretty close to the ministry of health and had started talks with it in this regard,” he further said. “ But we have to attain some success before introducing a complete vision of an e-pharmacy system to the government to get its support.”

In the meantime, the ehealth company has a war chest of over $60m in VC funding, and looks ready to play the game.

Matters of drug in Egypt is neither the exclusive preserve of the Egyptian Pharmacists’ Syndicate — which is a pressure group set up to promote the profession of pharmacy and to maintain its dignity and raise the scientific and professional level of pharmacists in Egypt — nor of Vezeeta. The Egyptian Ministry of Health, together with Egyptian Drug Authority, the Central Administration of Pharmaceutical Affairs (CAPA), the National Organization for Drug Control and Research (NODCAR), and the National Organization for Research and Control of Biologicals (NOCB) are charged by law to oversee the administration of drugs in the country.

Nonetheless, the syndicate should not be taken for granted. In 2014, the group together with pharmaceutical companies, lobbied the Egyptian government to increase drug prices after the Arab Spring thoroughly ravaged the country’s economy, forcing, among other things, currency devaluation. The government yielded, implementing a 20% price increase on all medicines costing less than EGP 30 in May 2016. In 2017, the Ministry of Health further issued a decree raising the price of 3,010 medicines by 30 to 50% under a new pricing formula.

However the battle goes, it appears that traditional prescription stores via their unions are moaning their last throes for survival, a pain inevitably worsened by the veil lifted on the mess in most countries’ healthcare systems by the coronavirus pandemic.

A Look At What Vezeeta Does

Founded in 2014 by Amir Barsoum and Ahmed Badr, Vezeeta started off as “DrBridge” in 2012 by providing a simple Electronic Medical Records solution to doctors in their private clinics. Unfortunately, DrBridge produced just a growth rate of 5% month over month (MoM), forcing the team to pivot further to a Practice Calendar Management scheme, which also failed. The co-founders then settled for Vezeeta in 2014. The Vezeeta product, unlike DrBridge, displayed an incredible 20% MoM growth rate and has now become the flagship product of the business that is revolutionizing the healthcare industry in Egypt.

The business moved from 1,000 doctors in 2015 to 10,000 doctors in 2018, representing more than 10 times increase. Bookings rose by 11 times from 2015 to 2018, too. Vezeeta currently operates in fives countries — Egypt, Saudi, Jordan, Kenya and Lebanon — and closes more than 3 million appointments a year, with more than 11,000 healthcare providers listed on their platform serving more than 2.5 million patients in the region.

“Doctors’ consultations and medication deliveries are key points of interests in healthcare. Medications alone account for 47 percent of the private healthcare opportunity, making ePharmacy a very exciting product,” explained Maha Melhem, VP of Vezeeta’s ePharmacy last year.

“By providing a fully digitized pharmaceutical experience, we are able to eliminate the many middlemen that not only slow down the process but also hinder patients’ experience. Our multi-service ePharmacy channel is equipped to offer auto-refill services, medication reminders, seamless same-day deliveries and hassle-free secure online payments to all users, among other essential healthcare services,” she added.

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

Vezeeta epharmacy Vezeeta epharmacy

Egypt’s Healthtech Startup Vezeeta Raises $40m Series D Round, Led By Gulf Capital

February 11, 2020

Vezeeta, Middle East and Africa’s leading digital healthcare platform has secured US$40 million Series D round led by Gulf Capital, the Middle East’s largest and most active alternative asset management firm. The round had strong support from existing investor, Saudi Technology Ventures (STV), who led Vezeeta’s Series C round in September 2018.

“Building a global healthcare powerhouse requires a strong investor base to support and drive continuous innovation and disruptive solutions. Gulf Capital provides us the perfect synergy for our future plans to diversify and expand our product portfolio on a global scale,” said Amir Barsoum, Founder and CEO of Vezeeta.

Here Is The Deal

This round of financing supports Vezeeta’s mission to empower patients in Middle Eastern and African markets with its integrated digital healthcare platform.
The latest investment will boost Vezeeta’s product innovation and fund global expansion plans in 2020.
In 2020, Vezeeta’s growth plans include rolling out its new digital capabilities of ePharmacy and Tele-health across its existing footprint and new markets.

Alvaro Abella, Director at Gulf Capital, who will be joining the Board, added, “Vezeeta is leading the digitization of the health care sector in our region, making it easier to book and confirm doctor appointments in real-time. We look forward to working closely with Vezeeta and to supporting the management’s growth plans with the aim of continued digitization of other parts of the health care value chain.”

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Raising more than US$63 million in funds since its founding in 2012, Vezeeta’s cohort of other high-profile investors also includes BECO Capital, Silicon Badia, Vostok New Ventures, Crescent Enterprises’ CE-Ventures and Endeavour Catalyst.

Why The Investors Invested

“Empowering patients and their families through technology to give them better access to healthcare services and more meaningful and manageable relationships with their healthcare providers has never been more important. We were impressed with the work that Amir and his team were doing and are excited to be working with Vezeeta on its next phase of growth. We believe that, with the right financial and operational support provided by the exceptional set of investors around the table, Amir and his team can scale up Vezeeta rapidly and position the Company as the undisputed leader in the healthcare technology sector in the region. This latest growth capital funding is Gulf Capital’s sixth investment in the technology sector and highlights our commitment to capitalise on the fast growing New Economy in the Middle East,” stated Dr Karim El Solh, Chief Executive Officer of Gulf Capital.

“We truly subscribe to the mission of improving healthcare using technology. The progress the company has achieved since our investment, especially in Saudi, is incredible. We are thrilled to double down on our position and to welcome Gulf Capital to the table. The next chapter for Vezeeta holds an even bigger opportunity, and we’re excited to see Vezeeta continue its growth in Saudi where it has become the undisputed market leader and to tackle vertical healthcare opportunities head-on,” commented Ahmad AlNaimi, Sr. Principal at STV.

What The Startup Vezeeta Does

Vezeeta has grown to become a mainstream digital leader of healthtech solutions, enabling patients to search, book and review the best doctors and medical services in just one minute. Currently operating in 50 cities across Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Lebanon, the platform generates 4 million annual appointments, tripling year over year.

With the support of STV in 2018, Vezeeta was able to bolster its expansion plans primarily in Saudi Arabia.

“Leveraging our technology, we have helped patients tap into the power of choice, and the power of information, to access the kind of healthcare that our users deserve. We will continue to cater to local healthrelated pains while expanding our product portfolio to many more markets,” added Barsoum.

These growth plans underline the company’s commitment to creating value for patients and healthcare providers in emerging markets, by empowering them with data, ease of access and affordable solutions in healthcare.

“At Vezeeta, our vision is to make healthcare accessible, affordable and of better quality for all patients. This new development reaffirms the strength of our business, which continues to put patients at the heart of what we do,” said Mohammad ElMougi, Chief Product Officer, Platform, Vezeeta. “For this very purpose, we are aggressively growing our R&D team to reinvent the patient’s end-to-end journey,” he added.

“Doctors’ consultations and medication deliveries are key points of interests in healthcare. Medications alone account for 47 percent of the private healthcare opportunity, making ePharmacy a very exciting product,” explained Maha Melhem, VP of ePharmacy. “By providing a fully digitized pharmaceutical experience, we are able to eliminate the many middlemen that not only slow down the process but also hinder patients’ experience. Our multi-service ePharmacy channel is equipped to offer auto-refill services, medication reminders, seamless same-day deliveries and hassle-free secure online payments to all users, among other essential healthcare services,” she added

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.
He could be contacted at udohrapulu@gmail.com