Redbird, a Ghana health tech startup, has raised a $1.5 million investment to make medical testing in the country an easier process for both patients and doctors by introducing a simple health monitoring system.
Participating investors in the round include Johnson & Johnson Foundation, Newton Partners (via the Imperial Venture Fund), and Founders Factory Africa. This brings the total investment raised by the fintech startup to date to $2.5 million.
Launched in 2018, Redbird co-founders Patrick Beattie, Andrew Quao, and Edward Grandstaff, Redbird partners with pharmacies to bring them proven rapid test technology for chronic and acute conditions, enabling them to expand their business, and giving patients a convenient way to monitor their health, wherever they are.
Additionally, Redbird also provides pharmacies with the necessary equipment and resources to make this a seamless process, including its software — Redbird Health Monitoring — which is networked across all its partner pharmacies to help build medical testing records for patients.
Redbird plans to use this seed investment to grow its operations within Ghana and expand to new markets that have yet to be disclosed.
According to CEO Beattie, he predicts that most diseases Africans may experience in the future will be chronic diseases, which is why he believes decentralized, digitized healthcare is the next prime opportunity for Sub-Saharan Africa.
“Chronic disease is exploding and with it, patients require much more frequent interaction with the healthcare system. The burden of chronic disease will make a health system that is highly centralized impossible.
“Like previous leapfrog events, this momentum is happening all over the world, not just in Africa. Still, the state of the current infrastructure means that healthcare systems here will be forced to innovate and adapt before health systems elsewhere are forced to, and therein lies the opportunity.”
