Afridigest Week in Review: Digitizing Egypt's pharmaceutical sector

+March meetup with Nadayar Enegesi +Partech Africa's Fund II is Africa's largest +Intuition vs expertise +29 business moat examples +Premature profitability +More

Emeka Ajene

Feb 13

The Afridigest Week in Review is a must-read weekly recap for Africa-focused founders, executives, and investors.

Welcome back, friends! The most clicked link last week was Taylor Pearson’s 'The Collison decision matrix: How to make the right decision.' We also published 'The complete list of African unicorns today' last week.

📌 Happy Valentine’s day 💌 Hope your day and week is filled with lots of love 👀. That said, some housekeeping: We’re moving the upcoming Lagos Meetup to March & it’ll include a live fireside chat with Eden Life’s Nadayar Enegesi — details below, signup here. We also experiment a bit with the format of the deal of the week section below — let me know what you think: 😡 Hate it • 😑 Meh • 😃 Love it

If you’re new, welcome — this Week in Review is sent on Mondays, the Fintech Review on Sundays, and from time to time, an original essay goes out on Saturdays. For past essays and digests, visit the archive.

💡 'When the hyena dances, it often goes towards the meat.' — Oromo proverb on flattery & ulterior motives 🇪🇹🇪🇷

Week 6 2023: February 5-11

📰 Deal of the Week

The deal: 🇪🇬 Yodawy, an Egyptian pharmacy benefits management and e-commerce platform, raised $16M in the first close of a Series B round co-led by Delivery Hero Ventures and Global Ventures.

AAIC (who we’ve profiled previously), Dallah Albaraka, Middle East Venture Partners (MEVP), C-Ventures, P1 Ventures, and others participated in the round.

The context: Today, almost all prescriptions and medical insurance claims in Egypt are paper-based.

And that causes long lines at pharmacies, errors with prescriptions, long processing times, and other issues.

All the friction in today’s experience is a problem for Egyptian patients, and doubly so for those with chronic illnesses who need prescriptions regularly.

But it’s an opportunity for pharma innovators like Yodawy.

About Yodawy: Founded in 2018, Yodawy is digitizing Egypt’s pharmaceutical sector.

It connects doctors & pharmacists, pharmaceutical companies, insurers, patients, and employers with software solutions and state-of-the-art logistics.

The company’s digital infrastructure simplifies how doctors issue prescriptions, how payers process them, how pharmacies approve & fill them, and how they’re ultimately delivered to patients.

Because of the value it offers as a result of its digital solutions, Yodawy now serves 20 leading health insurance companies, over 300 corporates, and more than 3,000 pharmacies and healthcare providers.

Today, the company processes and delivers almost 200,000 prescriptions every month across 38 cities in Egypt. And in the 18 months since its 2021 Series A, it’s grown revenue by 400%. 👀

Key personalities:

Karim Khashaba, Co-Founder and CEO, Yodawy
Brendon Blacker, Managing Partner at Delivery Hero Ventures
Noor Sweid, Managing Partner at Global Ventures

In the Founder’s words: “Yodawy is disrupting how prescriptions are produced digitally, by doctors, processed by payers, and delivered to patients’ homes. Our focus on products that solve fundamental challenges in the sector has enabled the company to become the leading digital pharma powerhouse in Egypt and the partner of choice for insurance companies and payers at large.” — Karim Khashaba

In the Investor’s words: “Yodawy’s … vision [is] to revolutionize the pharmacy industry across the MENA region. With its innovative business model and rapidly growing customer base, Yodawy is ideally positioned to impact the lives of millions of people who have been underserved by traditional healthcare providers.” — Brendon Blacker

“Yodawy make[s] pharma-retail accessible, affordable, and frictionless for millions of Egyptians. We continue to be fascinated by the ways they’ve used technology to elevate the healthcare experience for insured and non-insured patients.” — Noor Sweid

🔦 Deals

EQUITY DEALS ACROSS THE CONTINENT

🇿🇦 Sendmarc, a South African security platform offering email protection from phishing/spoofing attacks, raised a $7M Series A led by Atlantica Ventures, with participation from Allan Gray, E-Squared Ventures, Fireball Capital, Endeavor Catalyst, 4Di Capital, Endeavor Harvest, Alpha Private Capital, and Kalon Venture Partners.
🇪🇬 Gameball, an Egyptian customer intelligence and marketing CRM platform, raised a $3.5M seed round from 500 Global, P1 Ventures, Launch Africa, Seedra Ventures, Arzan Ventures, Propeller, Core Vision, and others
🇳🇬 Jendaya, a Nigerian/British fashion-focused luxury e-commerce platform, raised a ~$1.2M (£1M) pre-seed
🇿🇲 MPower, a Swiss/Zambian B2B2C clean energy platform providing solar hardware, software, and financing solutions, announced the ~$1.6M (EUR 1.5M) first close of a pre-series A round — The startup also has an ongoing crowd equity campaign on Seedrs that has reached ~$733K
🇲🇦 Chari, a Moroccan B2B marketplace & fintech platform for the FMCG sector, raised $1M from Orange Ventures
🇲🇦 Sand to Green, a Moroccan regenerative agtech platform transforming deserts into arable land, raised a $1M seed round from Katapult, Catalyst Fund, and other investors — we previously covered the startup’s participation in the Katapult & Catalyst Fund accelerators in Week 45 2022 and Week 2 2023.
🇳🇬 PressOne Africa, a Nigerian cloud-based, VoIP call management & monitoring platform for businesses, raised a $600K pre-seed led by Ventures Platform, with participation from Voltron Capital and others
🇰🇪 Fastagger, a Kenyan platform that uses AI and blockchain technologies to help SMES with customer insight and engagement, raised an undisclosed amount from CV VC.
🇰🇪 Senga, a Kenyan full-stack logistics platform offering bulk & ‘consolidation’ services, raised an undisclosed amount in a seed round from EchoVC
🇰🇪 Sokofresh, a Kenyan agtech cold storage & digital market linkage platform, raised an undisclosed amount from Acumen. It’s the first investment from Acumen’s new $25M Pioneer Energy Investment Initiative: Powering Livelihoods Using Solar (PEII+).
Seven ‘blue economy’ startups each received $27.5K in ‘seed capital’ (plus $27.5K worth of venture building support) from climate resilience venture launcher Triggering Exponential Climate Action

M&A

South African mobile gaming developer/licensor/publisher Carry1st acquired mobile mancala board game Gebeta for an undisclosed amount from Ethiopian game development studio Qene Games

INVESTOR ACTIVITY

Partech Africa Fund II announced a ~$263M (€245M) first close of what’s the largest Africa-focused fund yet, surpassing an initial fund target of $250M. The fund now targets a final close of “not more than” ~$300M (€280M). German Development Bank KfW is the fund’s anchor investor and Partech Africa’s portfolio includes Senegal’s Wave Mobile Money, South Africa’s Yoco, and Nigeria’s Nomba (formerly Kudi). We last covered Partech Africa’s Fund II in Week 33 2022.
Nigeria’s Ouranos Technologies invested $2M to launch enterprise technology venture studio Ouranos Lab
Egypt’s Flat6Labs announced the first close of its $20M Startup Seed Fund targeting ventures in Saudi Arabia

📚 Quick hits

FOR YOUR READING PLEASURE

Founder intuition vs. Team expertise vs. Customer expertise — Thoughtful and thought-provoking read from Casey Winters (former CPO at Eventbrite & former growth lead at Pinterest and Grubhub) on how companies evolve and the tension between founders, teams, and customers.
Generative AI: The next consumer platform — If you’re not overwhelmed by generative AI content yet, here’s a pretty solid overview of the opportunities & potential impact of generative AI in major consumer-facing categories, from a16z’s Connie Chan and Justine Moore. [Pair this with Tanay Jaipuria’s ‘Big Tech and Generative AI.’]
29 business moats that helped shape the world’s most massive companies (PDF) — New report from CB Insights on network effects moats, cost moats, cultural moats, and resource moats, featuring companies like Coinbase, Slack, and Coca-Cola.

AFRIDIGEST ARTICLES

The complete list of African unicorns today — A quick overview of the seven unicorns in Africa’s tech ecosystem today & what they do.

PUBLIC BOOKMARKING - PRESENTATIONS GALORE

The new gatekeepers — Ben Evans’ annual presentation on the trends defining tech today.
The State of tech in Africa today — The slides from my session with Dami at the AfricaNXT conference last Thursday.
Big ideas 2023 (PDF) — Cathie Woods/Ark Invest’s latest presentation of the “technological breakthroughs evolving today and creating the potential for super-exponential growth tomorrow.”

👀 Visual of the Week

39% of the ~$4.9B in equity raised in Africa Tech last year went to fintech. Cleantech and commerce (e-commerce, m-commerce, and social commerce) rounded out the top three:

Source: 2022 Africa Tech Venture Capital Report. Partech.

🕵️‍♀️ In case you missed it

NEWS

French broadcaster Canal+ increased its stake in South African pay-TV company MultiChoice to 30.3%.
Mobility news: Cameroon suspends ride-hailing app Yango, but Yango says the suspension applies to services providers using its platform, not the platform itself; Elsewhere, Nigerian mobility/logistics platform Hytch shut down
A Kenyan court rejected Meta’s request to be removed as party in a lawsuit filed against it and Sama

ESSAYS & OP-EDS

Osinachi Ukomadu, Co-Founder & CEO of Heroshe, writes ‘The third wave of ecommerce in Africa’
Ken Opalo, Assistant Professor at Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service writes ‘Three billion Africans’
Jasiel Martin-Odoom, Africa Investment Officer at Accion Venture Lab, writes ‘Digital insurance offers security for underserved communities in Africa’

PROFILES/INTERVIEWS

Adebayo Adedeji, Group CEO, Wakanow
Eche Emole, Co-Founder, Afropolitan
Romain Poirot-Lellig, Founder & CEO, Kwik
Goodness Kayode, Co-founder and CEO, Sendchamp
Zacahariah George, Managing Partner, Launch Africa Ventures (video)

🐤 Tweet of the Week

On profitability vs growth:

Eghosa Omoigui @EghosaO

Increasingly worried by how many early-stage founders I meet that were told they have to show profitability to secure the next VC round. This is gen bad advice. It is critical to understand your unit econ, sales motion, & customer segmentation. Premature profitability is a thing.

Follow AfridigestHQ on Twitter

Bonus tweets: Small exits are needed?

🗣️ Community Corner and Opportunities (feel free to send yours in)

🎰 OPPORTUNITIES

Women founders building tech startups in or for Africa are invited to apply before February 20th for the Google for Startups Accelerator Women Founders Africa program.
East African citizens building solution addressing climate change problems affecting health are invited to apply before February 23rd to the Villgro Africa Gender lens & climate change healthcare focused innovations program.
GIZ is looking for a new service provider to help Africa-focused agtech and foodtech startups implement proper project management, data analytics, software development, web development and concept design techniques — the tender offer is open until February 28th.

💼 HIRING

The IFC’s Disruptive Technologies and Venture Capital team is hiring a Lagos-based Investment Analyst — closes today.
Founders Factory Africa is hiring a Head of Investor Relations (VC Network) to be based in Johannesburg, Nairobi, Lagos, Accra, or London
Mercy Corps Ventures is looking for an Investment Fellow — it’s a six-month engagement with the chance to turn into a full-time position.

🙊 The last word

WHAT I’M THINKING ABOUT

The next Afridigest meetup in Lagos is postponed until after the upcoming elections. And we’ll have a special guest: Nadayar Enegesi.

Nad is Co-Founder and CEO at Eden Life, a super app for domestic services that operates in Nigeria and Kenya. And before that he co-founded one of Africa’s unicorns, Andela.

We’ll go through his journey of company building & more during an in-person discussion and Q&A in March. It should be an insightful session for current & aspiring founders, investors, and others.

» Sign up now.

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