Villgro Africa Provides USD 170 K Funding To Four Healthtechs Startups

Villgro Africa, an impact investor incubating and supporting early-stage social entrepreneurs in Africa, has issued USD 170 K in funding to four health-related startups. The India-based early-stage business incubator and impact investor offers mentoring, funding, and access to networks to startups.

Two of the funded startups are Kenyan, DawaPay, a digital platform that partners with pharmaceutical manufacturers to promote the last-mile distribution of affordable essential medicines and laboratory consumables, and Damu-Sasa, a cloud-based, end-to-end blood services information management system to support the sourcing of blood, inventory management, and transfusion processes. They both received USD 50 K in support. DawaPay is the only one of the four companies to get capital in exchange for an equity stake; the others are all grants.

Ethiopian startup Simbona, a healthcare research and development company that designs and develops healthcare equipment and ICT systems has also received a USD 50 K grant, while Villgro has allocated USD 20 K to Ugandan company Wekebere, which is developing a maternal healthcare device that focuses on improving access to quality, timely, affordable antenatal care services.