Field Intelligence - Afrikan Heroes

Field Intelligence Secures New Funding from Johnson & Johnson to Enhance Healthcare Access in Africa

September 14, 2023

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Johnson & Johnson Impact Ventures, an impactful fund operating under the aegis of the Johnson & Johnson Foundation, has made a substantial investment in Field Intelligence, a pioneering startup poised to transform healthcare supply chains across Africa. This strategic investment reflects a resounding endorsement of Field Intelligence’s groundbreaking work in the region.

The infusion of capital from Johnson & Johnson Impact Ventures will serve as a powerful catalyst for Field Intelligence’s continued growth and expansion. Field Intelligence’s strategic plan involves not only scaling their existing operations in Kenya and Nigeria but also venturing into new territories across the African continent. This investment is, therefore, instrumental in fueling the realization of their ambitious goals.

Why the Investment Matters

At its core, Johnson & Johnson Impact Ventures recognizes Field Intelligence as a beacon of hope for healthcare equity in Africa. The reasons behind this investment are multifaceted. Field Intelligence addresses a critical issue that plagues the African healthcare landscape — the inefficiencies in healthcare supply chains. These inefficiencies have profound consequences, obstructing patient access to essential healthcare and burdening pharmacies and healthcare systems. Field Intelligence has demonstrated its prowess in developing scalable, sustainable solutions to tackle these life-threatening gaps. Their mission is not just noble; it’s imperative.

What Field Intelligence Does

Founded in 2015 by Michael Moreland and Justin Lorenzon, Field Intelligence has engineered a comprehensive platform that wields technology, fulfillment, and financing as potent tools. These tools are harnessed to modernize healthcare supply chains, ensuring uninterrupted patient access to vital medicines and supplies. This initiative caters to a wide spectrum of healthcare providers, ranging from community pharmacists to sprawling government hospitals in Kenya and Nigeria. The impact has been nothing short of astonishing. Field Intelligence has facilitated the procurement of over $1.5 billion worth of medicines and supplies, effectively enabling more than 600 million patient interactions at over 40,000 healthcare facilities.

In the words of Michael Moreland, the Co-founder and CEO of Field Intelligence, “Everything comes back to supply chains. Even if you have the right medical answer to an urgent health issue, the outcome still depends on how well the system can actually reach the patient. In Africa, this is both an imperative and an opportunity, and we’ve been excited to support public and private sector providers to strengthen health systems at every level.”

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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

Field Intelligence Expands into 11 New Cities in East and West Africa

August 8, 2021

The Nigerian e-health startup Field Intelligence is taking its highly innovative health supply chain digitization to 11 new cities across West and East Africa. The startup which focuses on transforming access to essential, life-saving medicine hopes to reach 1.4 million thresholds of serviced patients.

Field Intelligence was founded in 2015 as a leading pharmaceutical supply chain provider within Nigeria and Kenya, that aims to reshape the pharma value chain by turning the supply chain underlying it into a strategic tool for access and growth.

Michael Moreland, chief executive officer (CEO) of Field Intelligence.

The startup works collaboratively with African governments by delivering and scaling healthcare programmes, whilst catering for Africa’s small private pharmacies, by providing data led technology that aids inventory management and access to products.

After a year of rapid growth in sales and membership subscriptions to its Shelf Life platform, selling over 586,950 products in 63 different product categories, Field Intelligence has now expanded operations to Rivers, Edo, Kaduna, Kano, Enugu, Delta and Kwara States in Nigeria, and Eldoret, Mombasa, Kisumu and Naivasha in Kenya.

The startup, which raised a US$3.6 million Series A funding round in March 2020, allows independent and franchise pharmacies in the cities it serves to access 1,000 unique products, inventory planning, subscription delivery and Pay-As-You-Sell on the Shelf Life platform. The expansion will build on Field Intelligence’s existing 700-strong pharmacy membership, which has served over 1.4 million patients to accelerate quality frontline healthcare across Africa.

In 2022 Field Intelligence aims to surpass 2,000 pharmacies and drugstores using Shelf Life and by 2025 the company is targeting having 12,000 pharmacies in its network, making it the largest globally.

“Shelf Life’s rapid uptake across such a range of African markets is a testament to its potential as a solution for pharmacies across the continent. Rural and urban, East and West, we have found Shelf Life helping pharmacies overcome a shared set of challenges and seize new opportunities for growth by improving access for their patients,” said Michael Moreland, chief executive officer (CEO) of Field Intelligence.

“The ability of our technology to digitise, automate, and optimise planning, assortment, and fulfillment, led by an incredible team, is quickly making Shelf Life one of the largest retail pharmacy supply chains in Africa.”

Kelechi Deca

Kelechi Deca has over two decades of media experience, he has traveled to over 77 countries reporting on multilateral development institutions, international business, trade, travels, culture, and diplomacy. He is also a petrol head with in-depth knowledge of automobiles and the auto industry

Nigeria-based Healthtech Startup Field Intelligence Raises $3.6m In Series A Funding Round To Fuel Expansion

March 12, 2020

Michael Moreland, Co-Founder and CEO, Field Intelligence

Joining the train of Africa’s latest fund raisers is the Nigerian social enterprise startup, Field Intelligence, which is building a new generation of healthcare supply chains in Africa. The startup has declared that its USD 3.6 Mn Series A round has successfully come to and end.

“We’re delighted to welcome new investors into the business. They share our vision for catalysing change in a huge and vitally-important sector. They bring deep fintech and logistics experience, which will be vital in helping us build a new generation of healthcare supply chains in Africa and beyond,” Michael Moreland, Co-Founder and CEO, Field Intelligence said.

Here Is All You Need To Know

This Series A round of funding was led by Blue Haven Initiative, with investors including Newtown Partners via the recently announced Imperial Venture Fund and Accion Venture Lab.
With its latest investment, Field Intelligence plans to fund Shelf Life’s (its supply arm) expansion throughout Nigeria and Kenya, as well as the development of additional services for Shelf Life clients and their patients.

Why The Investors Invested

According to Llew Claasen, Managing Partner, Newtown Partners:

“We’re excited about the potential for the Field Intelligence technology-first distributor business model to grow the pharmaceutical value chain in Sub-Saharan Africa, by supplying genuine pharmaceutical products, managing stock and providing working capital finance to community pharmacies.”

On what the investors found in Shelf Life, an arm of Field Intelligence for which they are committing the investment, Lauren Cochran, Managing Director, Blue Haven Initiative, said:

“Shelf Life is a proven platform to transform access to medicines through Africa’s private community pharmacy market. The design and development have been done on the ground in Nigeria and Kenya and there’s real experience in the team of what it takes to deliver at scale in African health systems.”

Particularly, Ashley Lewis, Senior Investment Officer for Africa at Accion Venture Lab, Accion’s seed-stage inclusive fintech investment initiative, points out that:

“Its platform (Shelf Life) increases efficiency, decreases financing costs, and establishes strong rails for transformative payments and inventory services — ultimately improving access to medicines in community pharmacies.”

A Look At What Field Intelligence Does

Through Shelf Life, its supply service, the startup Field Intelligence is ensuring availability, reducing costs, and empowering pharmacies to grow by improving access.

The company which started back in 2015 claims to be focused on making the pharmaceutical supply chain radically simple, affordable, and effective, by helping providers — from the largest health systems to the smallest drug shops — to ensure a new generation can access the care it needs to flourish.

Field Intelligence calls itself a pioneer in pharmaceutical supply chain solutions in Africa. Its Shelf Life “Pay-As-You-Sell” subscription service for pharmaceutical products has grown rapidly since first debuting in Nigeria in mid-2017.

Shelf Life’s pharmacy clients can subscribe to over a thousand quality-assured and price-stabilised drugs from 50 medical, health and wellness categories. Using Field Intelligence’s technology platform, Shelf Life forecasts, procures, delivers, manages, and finances each product the pharmacy has subscribed to

Field Intelligence says over 280 community pharmacies in Nigeria and Kenya have now subscribed to Shelf Life to-date, making it one of the largest networks of pharmacies on the continent.

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