By Adedapo Adesanya
As part of its expansion plans, Nigerian health tech startup, Helium Health, has announced the acquisition of Meddy, a doctor booking platform in Qatar.
With this deal, Meddy’s CEO, Mr Haris Aghadi, and the COO, Mr Abed Alkarim Khattab, will join Helium Health’s leadership team and the Qatar business would now be known as Helium Doc.
This has been regarded as a rare partnership between West African startups and Middle Eastern startups.
However, Mr Adegoke Olubusi, Helium Health’s CEO, revealed that the cultural similarity of the two teams was key in the transaction.
“Beyond the actual product and market opportunity, what made this possible was really the composition of the team, how well they executed the fact that they share a DNA and culture that’s very similar to ours,” he said.
Founded by Mr Olubusi, Dimeji Sofowora, and Tito Ovia, Helium Health provides a suite of services for its healthcare clients. These services include an electronic medical records solution, HeliumPay, a billing and payment solution, a collateral-free loan product, HeliumCredit, and HeliumDoc.
Since its inception, the company has established a presence in six African countries, helping over 5,000 health professionals to serve about 165,000 patients monthly.
This is not its first expansion this year as Helium Health had already expanded to Kenya.
At the time of its Series A raise in 2020, it hinted at plans to expand into East and North Africa. While it has not yet expanded into North Africa, its foray into the Middle East presents it with an opportunity to tap into Meddy’s reach in the region.
The startup has reportedly facilitated over 200,000 doctor appointments and helped healthcare providers generate approximately $130 million in billings.
Helium Health is well-known for its core electronic medical records (EMR) and hospital management solutions in Africa. But it has since evolved to offer other services under its platform, including HeliumPay, a billing and payments solution; a collateral-free loan product, HeliumCredit; patient-provider and revenue cycle management service HeliumDoc; and data analytics services.
With a presence in six African countries — Nigeria, Ghana, Senegal, Liberia, Kenya and Uganda — Helium Health has signed more than 500 healthcare facilities. Over 7,000 medical professionals from these facilities now provide care to more than 300,000 patients monthly.
Aduragbemi Omiyale