By Adedapo Adesanya
Nigerian e-health startup, RxAll, has become the latest company selected to participate in the Founders Factory Africa’s Venture Scale programme, which provides access to funding and additional support services.
This comes after the organisation accepted five startups into the programme earlier this year in February.
The startups include Nigerian agritech, FoodLocker; Kenyan last-mile FMCG, Bwala Africa; and three South African startups — medical booking platform LocumBase, medtech company Envisionit Deep AI, and biomedical startup Akili Labs.
Founders Factory was originally launched in London in 2015 and has already built 70 startups and launched African operations in Johannesburg in 2018, from where it plans to design, build and scale 140 disruptive tech startups across Africa over the next five years.
The company brought its model to Africa in partnership with Standard Bank, which made a multi-million-dollar investment into Founders Factory Africa, and the pair made their first investments April of last year.
It has since secured backing from Netcare, which operates South Africa’s largest hospital network, to provide a platform for entrepreneurs to build and scale e-health startups across Africa.
Founded by Nigerian pharmacist, Mr Adebayo Alonge, alongside Amy Kao and Wei Lui, RxAll aims to quash the $30 billion global fake drug industry by enabling hospitals, pharmacies and patients in Africa to buy high quality, non-counterfeit medicines online by authenticating and delivering drugs through their curated marketplace.
RxAll is dedicated to providing high-quality medication to patients that need them. Its RxScanner is a proprietary molecular sensor device that can identify the quality of prescription drugs in 20 seconds displaying results on an IoS and Android app in real-time. The platform is active across the continent.
It will now take part in the six-month Venture Scale programme, through which it will gain access to 80,000 Pounds ($100,000) in cash, as well as tailored support services across product design, data science, engineering and business development.
Speaking on the selection, Mr Roo Rogers, CEO of Founders Factory Africa, said: “Counterfeit medication is a global health crisis. Its effects can be seen across the global healthcare ecosystem with over 1 million people dying globally per year.
“RxAll offers a unique, simple, and precise solution with its RxScanner device. FFA is excited to support RxAll’s growth and impact by delivering investment, network, and growth with Adebayo Alonge and his team.”
In addition to the funding and resources, RxAll will also have access to exclusive partnerships with FFA’s pan-African corporate investors, Standard Bank and Netcare.
“RxAll is an exciting venture that allows patients to have better access to high-quality medication and pharmacies to access authenticated medication,” said Mr Richard Friedland, CEO of Netcare Group.
Aduragbemi Omiyale