CarePoint, a technology-driven healthcare startup, has raised $10 million bridge round to accelerate its growth across Africa, as it seeks to make healthcare accessible to the masses.
The startup recently entered Egypt, its fourth market in Africa, after Kenya, Nigeria and Ghana. It is now eyeing North and East Africa, to continue its growth which is driven by mergers and acquisitions.
According to the startup’s founder and CEO, Dr. Sangu Delle, they are in the process of setting up telemedicine centers in their facilities and building “micro-tech-enabled-clinics” targeting the masses. This will grow CarePoint‘s, formerly known as Africa Health Holdings, portfolio beyond in-person visits.
“The micro-clinics will have, at most, 12 employees, including a nurse. The patients will consult with doctors virtually. We are taking this route because we realized that as much as the mobile subscription in Africa is great and growing, if you look at it from an internet penetration perspective, so many people are still locked out because they cannot afford mobile data,” said Delle.
“These clinics are a way of democratizing access, and taking quality healthcare closer to the people, while making it affordable to them too,” he said.
Patients are also able to access care virtually through CarePoint’s MyCareMobile app, which links them to diverse services through teleconferencing, including consultations with their doctors, test results and 24-hour emergency response.
The startup is backed by five brands, including Sahe in Egypt, Meridian Health Group in Kenya, Rabito Clinic in Ghana and Nigeria’s Care Point, and Lilys Hospitals, all operating a total of 65 facilities.
Delle founded CarePoint after a lengthy career as an investor and CEO at Golden Palm Investments, a venture firm with an interest in early-stage opportunities in Africa, where he still serves as the chairman.
“At Golden Palm we built a very active venture capital practice and invested in many of the leading tech startups today – including Flutterwave and mPharma. So, everything about CarePoint started at Golden Palm since it incubates businesses too,” said Delle, a World Economic Forum Young Global Leader, and a Harvard and Oxford graduate
“We first started looking at healthcare because we realized that for us to have any socio-economic transformation, we have to solve health care challenges too. And to contextualize it, we (Africa) have about 16% of the global population, 26% of the global disease burden, but only 3% of global health care workers and 1% of global healthcare resources. We need to urgently bridge the gap, or we’re going to be in real trouble,” he said.
Delle said CarePoint will use part of the funding to build data science and AI teams to strengthen its technological resources, in addition to introducing new products.
The latest funding round was led by TRB Advisors, and brings the total funding raised by CarePoint to $30 million. It follows a $18 million series A round announced mid-November last year.
Source : Tech Crunch
