By Asmau Ahmad
Remedial Health, a health tech start-up has raised $4.4m in seed funding to speed up expansion across Nigeria to provide access credit for inventory purchases for neighbourhood pharmacies, proprietary patent medicine vendors and hospitals in the country.
In a statement, the seed funding round was led by Global Ventures, who re-invested after participating in the previous round.
Tencent, Y Combinator, Cathexis Ventures, LightSpeed Venture Partners Scout Fund, Ventures Platform, Alumni Ventures and True Capital Management also participated in the round which included prominent angel investors such as Guillaume Luccisano and Christopher Golda.
According to the Chief Executive Officer and co-Founder of Remedial Health, Samuel Okwuada, neighbourhood pharmacies and PPMVs have the potential to be the face of a thriving healthcare system in Africa.
“We believe that technology can play a significant role in making this vision a reality. The funds that we have raised and the strategic support from our investors will enable us to deliver the solutions to address various challenges that have hampered these businesses’ growth for many years, and make it easier to safeguard lives and livelihoods across the continent for years to come.”
Principal at Global Ventures, Sacha Haider, also noted that the market opportunity to serve community pharmacies across Africa is significant.
Haider said, “In Nigeria alone, 500,000 community pharmacies drive over 80per cent of a $70bn market in annual pharmaceutical sales.
“The team at Remedial Health is proactively addressing challenges including price opacity, poor drug quality control and a very fragmented supply chain, head on to create a tech-enabled, pharmacy-centred healthcare network that has allowed over 25per cent in cost reductions at the point of care.
“We are excited to partner with Sam on his mission to improve access to quality and affordable healthcare in Africa through optimised pharmaceutical supply chains.”
The statement said, the health start-up provides a range of solutions, including its digital procurement and patient medication records platforms that make it easier for neighbourhood pharmacies, PPMVs and hospitals to access affordable and authentic retail medicines. Healthcare providers can source vetted medications.
The start-up said that its new funding would support the rollout of its services across the rest of Nigeria, and also lay the groundwork for expansion across Africa in 2023.
