Salient Advisory studies innovations in health tech across the African continent. This newsletter summarizes the most interesting news we read each month. Submissions are welcome. Feel free to share.
Investors ramp up efforts to advance gender equity in African health tech
As part of its efforts to promote gender equity in the African health tech ecosystem, Villgro Africa in partnership with the Johnson & Johnson Foundation and Boehringer Ingelheim selected 19 women-led healthcare startups across eight African countries to participate in its 2024 Women-led Enterprises in Africa cohort. The selected innovators across Kenya (7), Nigeria (4), South Africa (2), Tanzania (2), Tunisia (1), Ethiopia (1), Ghana (1), and Rwanda (1), will receive funding and market access support to scale their solutions for diagnostics, emergency response, online pharmacy services, telemedicine, AI-powered services, maternal and child health, non-communicable diseases, reproductive health, treatment therapies and health information management.
Innovators receive funding to scale digital interventions to improve maternal and child health
Field Intelligence secured an $11 million grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to launch a route-to-market service to introduce emerging therapies to tackle the urgency of maternal mortality, newborn and child health, along with nutrition. The service will aim to deliver cutting-edge therapies to prevent postpartum haemorrhage, preeclampsia, and other conditions that lead to maternal mortality. It’s the latest notch for Field which launched in 2015 and has since collaborated with national government health programs and developed a suite of pharmaceutical and health supply chain solutions that support a network of over 40,000 private and public healthcare providers across Nigeria.
HelpMum Africa (Nigeria) and Jacaranda Health (Kenya), who recently unveiled their open-source language models to expand access to AI-powered maternal and child health interventions, received grants from Meta to support their work. HelpMum Africa was awarded the Llama Impact Innovation Award, receiving $35,000 and ad credits to enhance its AI-based chatbot service, which delivers vital vaccination information to mothers. Meanwhile, Jacaranda Health secured $300,000 through the Llama Impact Grant to scale its PROMPTS platform, a digital SMS and AI-based digital health assistant platform powered by multilingual models trained in multiple African languages.
Jacaranda Health also recently partnered with eHealth Africa to expand PROMPTS to Nigeria to support over 1.5 million mothers within the next three years and improve maternal and child health outcomes. A successful pilot study has just been concluded in Kano (one of Nigeria’s largest states) to adapt the PROMPTS platform to local market contexts and assess its uptake among 25,000 mothers.
Innovators secure support from investors, donors, and other philanthropic organizations
Mulago Foundation selected five health tech startups – Emergency Response Africa, Lafiya Nigeria, Projet Jeune Leader, Clinic+O, and PeleBox – to participate in its Rainer Arnhold Fellowship. The fellowship provides $100,000 in funding to support innovative solutions and facilitate their scale-up for greater impact in the healthcare sector.
Bena Care was selected as one of the 44 recipients of the Echoing Green Fellowship, who will receive funding and support to scale their solutions. Based in Kenya, the company aims to reduce healthcare costs for chronically ill patients by providing home care services and improving family caregivers’ skills.
Kasha, a health access technology platform, received an undisclosed investment from Sanofi’s Global Health Unit to drive its expansion across Africa and enhance access to medications and services for non-communicable diseases. Founded in 2016, Kasha facilitates last-mile delivery of health products and operates across seven African countries: Kenya, Rwanda, South Africa, DRC, Burundi, Uganda and Tanzania.
SyndicateBio, a Nigerian biotech company, was selected as one of the eleven startups to join the 2024 Techstars Physical Health Fort Worth Accelerator. Founded in 2023, Syndicate Bio aims to advance African inclusion in global genomics sciences and support local drug discovery and development.
Safaricom is investing over $800 million to digitize Kenya’s healthcare system
Safaricom, the biggest telecoms operator in Kenya announced an $800 million investment to digitize the country’s healthcare system over the next decade. In partnership with Konvergenz Network Solutions Limited and Aperio Limited, the initiative aims to develop and deploy an Integrated Healthcare Information Technology System to digitize public health facilities, streamline health supply chains, and introduce digital health insurance solutions. This investment, requiring no upfront government costs, will be repaid by the Ministry of Health through monthly installments contingent on key project milestones.
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