Yodawy, an Egyptian digital healthcare startup, has secured $16 million in the first close of its Series B. The round was co-led by Delivery Hero Ventures – the venture capital arm of Delivery Hero, and Global Ventures – an international, UAE-based, venture capital firm investing across MEA.
AAIC Investment – a Japanese fund headquartered out of Singapore that provides growth capital and long-term support to fast-growing companies within the healthcare sector in Africa, and Dallah Albaraka – a diversified international conglomerate based out of Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, also participated in this round.
Existing investors Middle East Venture Partners (MEVP), C-Ventures, and P1 Ventures who invested in the Company’s Series A fundraise followed on in this current round.
Founded in 2018 by Karim Khashaba, Yasser Abdel Gawad and Sherief El-Feky, Yodawy has pioneered a pharmacy benefit management platform that enables the entire healthcare ecosystem – insurance companies, pharmacies and pharmaceutical/FMCGs, – to serve a wider customer base faster.
The platform has processed over four million prescriptions to date and its value proposition and service benefits were recognised by leading payers and corporates who have selected Yodawy as their sole partner to serve patients in need of chronic medication. This latest funding brings the four-year-old company’s total capital raised to $24.5 million.
In the 18 months since its Series A, Yodawy has grown revenue by 400 per cent and has partnered with 20 leading health insurance companies, 3,000 pharmacies, and more than 300 corporates in Egypt.
The company has built a nationwide and tech-powered fulfilment infrastructure to reach patients across Egypt and has also launched a flagship e-prescription gateway, the first of its kind in Egypt. The e-prescription gateway allows physicians to go paperless with seven insurance companies and health management organisations participating in the program resulting in more than 2,000 e-prescriptions generated every day.
Karim Khashaba, co-founder and CEO of Yodawy, commented: “We are absolutely thrilled to receive the support of leading global investors with such strong healthcare and technology expertise. 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. Yodawy will continue to invest heavily in building one of the most inclusive and sophisticated pharma value chains across the Middle East and Africa’s $100 billion pharma market.”
The proceeds will fuel the growth of Yodawy’s signature Care Programme for Chronic patients – offering monthly medication refills to enrolled patients and processing daily deliveries, nationwide, across 38 cities in Egypt.
The company will continue to automate its operations, which will enable prescription processing at a larger scale, and bolster existing tech-enabled fulfilment capabilities to serve a rapidly growing base of patients. Beyond Egypt, Yodawy will also ring-fence part of the proceeds to finance its regional expansion.
Brendon Blacker, Managing Partner at Delivery Hero Ventures, commented: “We were drawn to Yodawy due to its founding team’s clear vision to revolutionise 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. As an incoming member of the Yodawy board, I look forward to supporting the team on their journey to build a world-class digital healthcare platform.”
Noor Sweid, Managing Partner at Global Ventures, commented: “Since our first investment one year and a half ago, the Yodawy team has consistently delivered on its mission of making 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.
“This is translated into their ability to serve more than 50,000 recurring chronic patients every month and save them more than 100,000 monthly hours of queuing to receive essential medication. We are thrilled to continue on this journey with them, and for the next chapter for Yodawy as it takes on more markets across the region.”
