Bypa-ss, an Egyptian healthtech startup, has closed a $1 million pre-seed funding to ramp up its expansion effort.
The investment round saw participation from Magic Fund, Acuity Ventures, Launch Africa, Plug and Play, and other regional and international VCs.
Bypa-ss was founded by Dr. Andrew Saad in 2019 and entered the market with its proprietary product, Healthtag, a platform for Health Information Exchange (HIE), offering physicians a free cloud-based clinic management solution.
The idea to build Bypa-ss could be traced to when Saad found himself in a tight situation where he had to make a medical decision for an unconscious patient whose medical record was not available. None of the patient’s family or friends were also around and she had only a few hours to live if not treated.
“We all get tested in more than one lab, buy medications from different places and get treated from different hospitals. But when in an emergency situation, won’t we need all of our medical history in one place?” Saad told TechCabal.
So he went on to conduct a series of research on health history data and how they can be banked digitally. As he went further in his research and medical practice, he realised that this is a general problem lots of patients and health workers had to deal with. So he started Bypa-ss and built its pioneering product, HealthTag.
Through linking with a cloud database, HealthTag securely stores medical records collected from different healthcare providers and gives them to their rightful owner, the user.
The startup provides a card for the patient that enables discounts up to 70% on treatment received. Commercially, this is reported to be cheaper than any discount cards in Egypt – pegged at 50 EGP ($3.2) annually per individual.
For healthcare providers, the company provides them with a cloud-based patient management solution, completely free of charge.
Growth and traction.
In one year, Bypa-ss went from operating in Menofia, a small city in the Nile Delta region of Egypt to expanding to five cities. Going through the incubation and early funding program by the Falak Startup’s investment helped the company to quickly get traction and raise more angel funds that enabled its growth.
Saad said the company currently has over 17,000 HealthTag cardholders, and over 3,500 healthcare providers – mainly in clinics, pharmacies, labs, and radiology centers – using their product.
“We are currently present in all Egyptian governorates with our main focus to be accessible to all through big cities; we are also expanding our networks to include hospitals and more institutions across Egypt and especially in more rural areas.” Saad said about expansion.
On revenue, Saad said the company makes money from a combination of its annual subscription and a commission it receives from care providers on the discounted services provided to its cardholders.
“With this investment coming in, we will be able to provide more features to our customers while maintaining our service level and growth momentum,” Saad, CEO of Bypa-ss, said in a statement available to TechCabal. “Additionally, the company intends to use the funds to fuel expansion, perfect a high end tech mobile app for patients to engulf and facilitate the information exchange between the stakeholders from different levels and sizes and capitalize on the company’s rapid growth.”
For Plug and Play, “we are beyond excited to invest in Bypa-ss! We are confident that Andrew and his team will build the future of health information infrastructure in Egypt, and we are glad to be part of it.”
According to the CEO, HealthTag is currently the only product serving patients and health providers with such capacity in the country.
“Our real competitor right now is pen and paper. We have around 100,000 private clinics in Egypt, with around 98% of them still dependent on paper records,” said Saad pointing to the opportunity the company has to onboard more of these clinics as it expands.
