i3 Backs 7 African Healthtechs With USD 225 K In Switch To Growth-Stage Bets After Trump Shakeup

Investing in Innovation Africa (i3), the Gates Foundation-backed initiative accelerating healthtech in Africa, has announced the third cohort of startups to receive up to USD 225 K each in funding and partnership support.

This year’s cohort comes with a strategic pivot: a narrowed focus on seven growth-stage companies building pharmacy-focused innovations, a decision triggered by the January 2025 “stop-work” directive on foreign aid from the Trump-led U.S. State Department, as the i3 initiative had shared in February.

That policy shift, which jeopardises the flow of essential medicines across African supply chains, prompted i3 to abandon its earlier plan to support a mix of 10 early-stage and 5 growth-stage startups. Instead, i3 moved swiftly to concentrate its efforts on scaling established ventures already proving impact in pharmacy care, seen as critical nodes in healthcare access, especially in underserved regions.

The selected startups: Chefaa, Dawa Mkononi, Meditect, mPharma, myDawa, RxAll, and Sproxil, operate in 19 countries and bring solutions that range from AI-driven prescription refills and product authentication to embedded financing and cloud-based pharmacy systems. Collectively, they represent some of the continent’s most promising pharmacy-tech ventures aiming to make medicine distribution safer, faster, and more affordable.

Each startup will not only receive non-dilutive funding but will also gain access to market-entry support, matchmaking with institutional buyers, and exposure at i3’s flagship Access to Markets event later this year. The program, now in its third year, is coordinated by Salient Advisory and Solina Centre for International Development and Research (SCIDaR), with additional support from leading African tech hubs like CcHUB and Villgro Africa.

With this new cohort, i3 doubles down on its ambition to catalyse USD 30 M in healthcare partnerships through over 150 strategic connections. Backers of the program, including MSD, Cencora, Sanofi’s Global Health Unit, Chemonics, Endless Foundation, and HELP Logistics, hope that this more targeted, resilience-first approach will shore up local health systems in the wake of global uncertainty.

So far, the i3 program has channelled USD 3 M in grants to 60 startups across 18 countries, boasting over USD 11 M in partnerships and nearly 1,000 jobs created. With global aid under pressure, its latest cohort may well define a new blueprint in the shape of African-grown, locally anchored solutions less dependent on the whims of foreign policy.