Vezeeta - Afrikan Heroes

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

Egyptian E-health Startup, Vezeeta, Expands E-Pharmacy Solution To Nigeria, Kenya And Ghana, Records 1m Users In 4 Months

July 19, 2021

Vezeeta, the Middle East and Africa’s top digital healthcare platform, is expanding its B2B SaaS pharmacy offering to provide healthcare providers with unrivaled technology across its key markets, including Nigeria, Kenya and Ghana. TEAMFund, a US-based impact VC focused on promoting tech change and healthcare access in emerging economies, is supporting the launch.

*Mohammad El Mougi, chief product officer, Vezeeta*

“Vezeeta is gearing up to roll out its B2B SaaS solution, Vezeeta-in-a-box, across the region, and UAE is one of key markets we’re focused on. Our SaaS solution first digitised and disrupted the industry with the doctors’ booking solution, and then revolutionised the pharmacy sector. Now, in the aftermath of the Covid-19 pandemic, as the need for digital transformation across the industry becomes urgent, the white label led-solution is set to elevate patients’ access to quality care by empowering healthcare entities through next-gen digital tools,” said Mohammad El Mougi, chief product officer, Vezeeta.

Here Is What You Need To Know

Vezeeta raised a $40 million Series D funding round in February 2020, led by Gulf Capital of the United Arab Emirates, with additional capital from current Riyadh-based investor Saudi Technology Ventures (STV), which led Vezeeta’s $12 million Series C round in September 2018. TEAMFund, BECO Capital, Silicon Badia, Vostok New Ventures, Crescent Enterprises’ CE-Ventures, and Endeavour Catalyst are among Vezeeta’s other investors. Over the course of four fundraising rounds, the business has raised more than $64 million.

‘Vezeeta-in-a-Box,’ a new white label-led solution, enables healthcare organizations of all sizes to improve their patients’ healthcare experiences by focusing on digital first. Hospitals and polyclinics can now use APIs to interface with Vezeeta’s SaaS solution, allowing their patients to benefit from the platform’s streamlined healthcare experiences. Real-time online scheduling for doctors’ in-clinic and telehealth follow-up appointments, labs, scans, and procedures, as well as the purchase and delivery of prescriptions, are all included in the entire array of capabilities.

“TEAMFund is proud to partner with Vezeeta, a mission-driven, transformative company that is putting to practice and championing the principles of ESG and impact, to actively ensure the wellbeing and health of underserved communities in emerging markets. Vezeeta’s B2B solution is well positioned to drive sustainable changes within the health-tech landscape across the world, including both developed and developing markets, and disrupt the way healthcare entities interact and treat their patients at-large through innovative, easy-to-use solutions,” said Yousuf Mazhar, Managing Partner, TEAMFund.
Read also:South African Health-tech Startup, iNNOHEALTH, Secures Seven-figure Seed Funding

Since its premiere in April 2021 in Saudi Arabia, ‘Vezeeta-in-a-Box’ has partnered with three mega hospitals and nine polyclinics. Other significant markets, including Egypt, Nigeria, Kenya, and Ghana, will now have access to the solution.

“Vezeeta’s tech team has worked around-the-clock to develop and launch the B2B SaaS. This product is particularly beneficial for entities that are looking to reduce time-to-market, and cut costs and investments associated with developing and maintaining such technological capabilities,” said Nana Frimpong, VP of Africa at Vezeeta, who is leading the B2B SaaS business across all countries.

Vezeeta’s pharmacy SaaS was launched in Egypt in February 2021, and it has since served over 1 million patients.

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. Over all, Vezeeta has serviced more than 10 million patients in 55 cities, more than doubling its year-over-year growth.

“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.

Vezeeta pharmacy Nigeria Vezeeta pharmacy Nigeria

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

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 write

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