Health - Afrikan Heroes

Kenyan Startup Ilara Health Raises $735k Seed Funding Round To Grow Business

August 8, 2019

2019 has proven a good year for health and ride-sharing startups in Africa. More funding is coming than ever before. Kenyan startup Ilara Health, which is bringing affordable diagnostics services to doctors, has just joined the wagon. The startup has raised a US$735,000 seed funding round to grow its offering in the East African country and ultimately beyond.

Here Is The Deal

The US$735,000 seed funding for the startup came from investment firms ShakaVC, Chandaria Capital, and Villgro Kenya, with the round also including angel investors such as Esther Dyson, Nijhad Jamal, Aadil Mamujee, Selma Ribica, and Shakir Merali. Several of the new investors will become strategic advisors to the business.

“Seventy per cent of patients need some form of medical test to inform their treatment, but many doctors across Africa have limited ability to perform diagnostics in their clinics. When a patient needs a test, doctors often refer them to a lab. Given the infrastructure challenges across the region — the time, the money it takes to get anywhere — patients frequently fail to attend and care breaks down,” said Emilian Popa, co-founder and chief executive officer (CEO) at Ilara Health.

This round of investment will be used primarily to grow Ilara Health ’s peri-urban medical clinic customers in Kenya, and ultimately beyond. It will also allow the company to build a flexible technology platform to manage and protect valuable patient health and clinic financial data.

A Glance At The Startup

Founded in 2018, Kenyan health startup Ilara Health sources tech-powered diagnostics equipment and makes it accessible to Africans who struggle to afford it, bundling the equipment and integrating the devices via a proprietary technology platform. Doctors pay a deposit to use the equipment and then pay off the remaining cost in installments determined by usage.

What Drew Investors In

Esther Dyson, angel investor and executive founder at Wellville, said she had invested in Ilara because she had watched CEO Popa explore the market to find the perfect, sustainable product-market fit.

“Moreover, the need is great, and the benefits of simple, cost-effective diagnostic tools will extend well beyond the patients and doctors, affecting first Kenya and ultimately the continent at large,” she said.

Charles Rapulu Udoh

Charles Rapulu Udoh is a Lagos-based Lawyer with special focus on Business Law, Intellectual Property Rights, Entertainment and Technology Law. He is also an award-winning writer. Working for notable organizations so far has exposed him to some of industry best practices in business, finance strategies, law, dispute resolution, and data analytics both in Nigeria and across the world.

Facebook: https://web.facebook.com/Afrikanheroes/

Founders Factory Africa and Netcare Are Looking For African Health-tech Startups To Invest In

June 27, 2019

Health tech startups in Africa have got another pool of funds to tap from. Founders Factory Africa and South African healthcare company Netcare are looking to select 35 African health-tech startups for an acceleration and incubation program.

Here Are Details Of The Fund

Founders Factory Africa is looking to commit a minimum of a £30,000 cash investment in accelerated startups as well as £220,000 in support services each. Incubator health-tech ventures will receive £60K cash and £100K toward support.
Founders Factory Africa and Netcare will then both retain a 5 to 10 percent equity stake in each startup accepted into the program.
The program will accelerate 5 startups a year and incubate 2, FFA CEO Roo Rogers.
Criteria for the accelerator startups include that they have a healthcare focus, be post-revenue, and have a Pan-African scope.
Startups aiming to pursue those objectives through Founders Factory Africa’s new accelerator program have until September 6 to apply
This is the first big foray into tech funding for Netcare, which operates South Africa’s largest private hospital network, according to CEO, Dr. Richard Friedland.
The partnership includes an investment (of an undisclosed amount) by Netcare in Founder’s Factory Africa, or FFA. The Johannesburg-located organization was formed in 2018 as an extension of Founders Factory in London — an accelerator that has graduated 122 startups.

How Startups Can Access The Funds

Interested startups who render health-tech services in Africa can forward all their applications to Founders Factory’s Online Portal for the FFA’s new Africa health-tech program.

There Are Huge Opportunities And Gaps In The African Health Sector

“There are so many issues in terms of healthcare delivery in Africa that can benefit from technological solutions,” Netcare CEO Richard Friedland said.

“I think the old bricks and mortar model of delivering healthcare in South Africa, in a private insurance or public setting, is archaic, it’s limited, it’s capital intensive and I think health-tech solutions can break that down,” he added.

Overall, Founders Factory’s move into Africa and healthcare (through FFA) raises several compelling things to watch.

One is the rise in African health-tech as a sector and the need for more capital. Formation of healthcare-focused African startups has picked up but investment into these ventures is relatively low compared to annual VC: only $19 million of roughly $1 billion (using Briter Bridges and Partech numbers).

This is also particularly meager given the potential impact of health-focused startups on a continent that still posts dismal stats comparatively. World Bank life expectancy rates, which on average place Africa last, are just one indicator. So the FFA initiative could serve as a needed boost for African health-tech

“The way we deliver healthcare in South Africa, Africa, and perhaps internationally…is in many cases broken,” he said, adding there’s a crisis of affordability and access to healthcare in Africa.

“I believe healthcare is ripe for disruption and innovation and that couldn’t be more true than it is here in South Africa and the rest of the continent,” Friedland said.

He named the FFA partnership as a way to increase the quality of healthcare in Africa. “We think the…continent and even our own business in South Africa can benefit,” he said.

Netcare’s interest in partnering with Founders Factory Africa to support startups comes down to multiplying healthcare solutions across the continent and shaking up the healthcare industry, according to Friedland.

Though a value wasn’t named for the Netcare round, it’s Founders Factory Africa’s second investment raise and collaboration.

Founders Factory entered Africa in 2018 through a partnership with Standard Bank (the continent’s largest bank), which a release said included a “multi-million-pound investment.” Founders Factory Africa selected the first five startups for its fintech accelerator track in April 2019.

Founders Factory Africa and Netcare’s investment in health-tech could produce innovation models with use-cases beyond Africa. Zipline and the rest have already given African health startups the green light.

Charles Rapulu Udoh

Charles Rapulu Udoh is a Lagos-based Lawyer with special focus on Business Law, Intellectual Property Rights, Entertainment and Technology Law. He is also an award-winning writer. Working for notable organizations so far has exposed him to some of industry best practices in business, finance strategies, law, dispute resolution, and data analytics both in Nigeria and across the world.

Facebook: https://web.facebook.com/Afrikanheroes/

CarePay: Kenyan Startup Looks To Disrupt Health Care Payment In Africa With £40 Million Expansion Fund

May 16, 2019

There are still so much unexploited opportunities in the African health payment market. This is what the Amsterdam and Nairobi-based startup, CarePay International is looking to tap into. With £40 Million in new funding, the startup is trying to expand to more territories.

Key Analyses

The startup is smarter here. It is choosing to expand more on its investment in Nigeria with a population of 200 million people (and which had the value of transactions conducted through mobile devices rise by 56 per cent in the first nine months of 2018 alone to N216bn from the 2017 figure of N138bn (about $600 million).

And it is also choosing Tanzania,the sixth most populous country in Africa ( which had the value of Mobile Money Transactions reaching TZS 50 Trillion ( about $22 billion) in 2016–17) as the starting point of its investment targets.

With the latest funding of £40 million, CarePay is already one of the most funded startups in the whole of Africa, in the rank of Andela, others.

The startup is going to Health tech in the countries and it plans to digitally connect health players including insurers, users, and providers on a single mobile platform, so that they can communicate and make transactions in real-time.

The startup was also strategic with this round of fund raising as it targeted a pool of investors from different investing backgrounds, in order to give the startup a two-sided look: that of generating a social outlook for the startup and bringing back financial returns. Dutch private equity funds IFHA-II, impact investor ELMA Investments, Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs which invested through the PharmAccess Group are some of the mixture of investors for this round.

In 2015 alone, investors poured over 14 billion USD into fintech companies globally while African fintech startups have attracted almost 30% of the total VC investments into the continent, which amounts to nearly $50 million.

By December 2017, 49.1 per cent (338.4 million) global mobile money accounts were in Sub-Saharan Africa. Within the region, East Africa had 56.4 per cent of the accounts, followed by West Africa at 30.9 per cent. In Eastern Africa, 66 per cent of the adult population of Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda combined actively used mobile money.

Although health insurance coverage is still low in many countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, mobile money use may have increased access to it. Kenya’s social health insurance, the National Hospital Insurance Fund (NHIF), for instance, experienced a 500 per cent increase in voluntary payment subscribers between 2009 and 2017 after the organisation started receiving payments via M-PESA

Also See: Kenyan e-Health Startup Raises $3m For Expansion

CarePay International was launched in 2015.

“The mobile phone allows you to reach everyone at almost no extra cost, this creates unprecedented opportunities for health insurance schemes,” said Onno Schellekens, CEO of CarePay International.

“Universal health coverage in Africa will only be possible if governments and their citizens can provide and access health services from both the public and private sectors through seamless and efficient mechanisms, CarePay brings that ambitious vision within the realm of possibility,” said Tom McPartland, a Board member of ELMA Investments.

“The current health insurance model excludes huge parts of the African population as the administrative costs are too high, there is not enough data and outpatient costs cannot be controlled,” said Max Coppoolse, IFHA-II’s Managing Partner. “CarePay’s mobile technology addresses all these elements and in addition offers cross-sale opportunities and other significant growth prospects for insurers.”

CarePay International works with private and public health payers, connecting millions of people to its platform that are currently excluded from quality healthcare services in Africa.

Charles Rapulu Udoh

Charles Rapulu Udoh, a Lagos-based Lawyer with special focus on Business Law, Intellectual Property Rights, Entertainment and Technology Law. He is also an award-winning writer. Working for notable organisations so far has exposed him to some of industry best practices in business, finance strategies, law, dispute resolution and data analytics both in Nigeria and across the world.