Although healthtech innovation holds a lot of potential to address some of Africa’s most pressing healthcare challenges, scaling solutions has always been a challenge. From unclear regulatory frameworks to a lack of funding for early-stage startups, the continent faces dire roadblocks on its quest for healthtech innovation mainstreaming
At the recent BRAIN 4.0 Bootcamp in South Africa, seven African healthtech startups — including Nigeria’s Chekkit, Tunisia’s Remotion and E-steps, Tanzania’s TanzMed, the DRC’s Valorigo, and Côte d’Ivoire’s Zencey and PSM — explored how to scale their innovations for greater impact.
Powered by Africa Grow, Digital Africa, and Sanofi’s Global Health Unit for sustainable impact, the BRAIN Accelerator is run in partnership with MIT-Africa, MIT Executive MBA, AfricInvest, InstaDeep, and Bpifrance. The regional bootcamp is mainly hosted by Stellenbosch University, LaunchLab, CERI, and Fluorobiotech, sponsored by Octoco, Technopark, and Workshack, and locally supported by Wesgro and Innovation City.
In addition to pitch sessions, one-on-ones, and expert presentations, a panel discussion on scaling healthtech across the continent brought key insights to the forefront. The session was hosted and sponsored by Octoco, a South African innovation partner that supports companies through hardware, software, and IoT product development, alongside early-stage investment via its Yenza Venture Studio. According to Fannie Hattingh, Digital Health Lead at MediClinic, Africa’s largest private clinic chain, there needs to be a symbiotic relationship between startups and established healthcare providers like MediClinic.
“With established institutions, there is a solid framework of corporate governance and market presence which is vital in supporting startups to scale,” Hattingh said.
Dr. Anton Du Preez van Staden, co-founder of biotech startup Fluorobiotech — a BRAIN graduate and finalist of the previous cohort — incubated by the University of Stellenbosch’s Launch Lab, shares a similar view. Since Africa’s healthcare market is relatively small, with a concentrated number of potential customers, especially in the B2B segment, consolidation of efforts is “key to enabling African healthtech startups achieve their scale ambitions.”
For investors like pan-African firm Sanofi, building healthtech startups on the continent requires patient capital. Unlike VC darling sectors like e-commerce, fintech, and mobility, healthtech startups, even during the 2021-22 heydays of VC inflow into Africa, secured less funding from investors.
“Healthtech companies in Africa face challenges that go well beyond funding,” said Aurélie Ette Askia, Senior Impact Investment Manager at Sanofi. “Tackling them requires broad, systemic support. Building coalitions with peers, donors, grant-providers, DFIs to support early-stage companies and address structural barriers to scaling impact innovations is a necessity.”
To address the fragmented markets challenge, Thomas Kisimbe, senior public health expert with the Boston Consulting Group (BCG), suggested that the consolidation of markets is necessary.
“It is easier to scale when there is consolidation because you can then deal with abiding by regulatory frameworks across multiple jurisdictions,” Kisimbe said, adding that the funding challenge can be addressed by other sources, including grants and institutional pension funds.
Africa’s path to healthcare self-sustainability seems murky, and it will take a combined ecosystem effort to clear the waters. Startups must build innovations for problems that exist. Additionally, consolidating efforts via mergers and acquisitions is also important, considering the size of the healthcare market.
For ecosystem supporters, including OST, programs like the BRAIN Bootcamp 4.0 will be vital in enabling startups to check all the boxes needed to build impactful solutions. As Kisimbe succinctly put it, “Achieving healthcare’s full potential is a responsibility that we should all be contributing to yield maximum impact.”
