Health-tech startup, Remedial Health, has raised $4.4 million in its seed funding round. The startup, whose service includes the digitalization of pharmaceutical supply chain, said it would use the funds to push its expansion, and improve its customers’ access to pharmaceutical products by providing access to credit.
“Neighbourhood pharmacies and PPMVs have the potential to be the face of a thriving healthcare system in Africa, and 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,” CEO and co-founder, Samuel Okwuada said.
The seed funding round was led by Global Ventures (Global Ventures also co-led its pre-seed round). Other investment firms that participated in the fundraise are Tencent, Y Combinator, Cathexis Ventures, LightSpeed Venture Partners Scout Fund, Ventures Platform, Alumni Ventures, and True Capital Management. The fundraise also had input from a number of angel investors, including Guillaume Luccisano, and Christopher Golda.
Remedial Health was founded in 2020, and launched in March, 2021. It was co-founded by Samuel Okwuada (who doubles as CEO) and Victor Benjamin (COO). In February, Remedial Health raised $1 million in its pre-seed funding round.
Prior to co-founding Remedial Health, Okwuada ran a medicine-importation business. While running the business, he witnessed the supply chain and counterfeit challenges in the industry, and this led to the formation of Remedial Health.
“If you’re a Nigerian, you may be familiar with the Idumota market, the largest pharmaceutical market in the country. Medicine is typically kept in stores where temperatures are very high and products are not handled properly. This might be fine for products that are not consumables, but it’s not the ideal way for medicine. […] You’ll typically find that by the time medicine passes through this supply chain, they lose some percentage of their effectiveness. There was also the counterfeit issue, which means you have people profiting off this loophole. These are the problems we saw, and we’re all about solving them for Nigeria and then for Africa,” Okwuada told TechPoint.
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Speaking on the fundraise, Global Ventures Principal, Sacha Haider said:
“The market opportunity to serve community pharmacies across Africa is significant. In Nigeria alone, 500,000 community pharmacies drive over 80% of a 70-billion-dollar market in annual pharmaceutical sales. The team at Rememdial Health is proactively addressing challenges, including price opacity, poor drug quality control and a very fragmented supply chain though a tech-enabled, pharmacy-centered healthcare network that has allowed over 25% in cost reductions at the point of care.”
Okwuada emphasized that the startup has recorded 6x growth since January, and it has expanded the its customer based since it launch its inventory finance product.
“The launch of our inventory finance product has also attracted more customers to our platform, as they have been able to take advantage of it to grow their businesses and navigate the challenge of rising prices. More than 60 percent of our customers use the inventory finance product and we have seen more than 50 percent growth in their average basket size since we launched the product,” Okwuada said.
