The effects of last year's pandemic have seen digital healthcare continue to flourish globally, but regional venture capital inflows are different with Africa trailing the rest of the globe.
Investors have been paying attention to some innovative startups in health tech, and they invested over $77 million in 56 deals last year. Egypt is one the continent's bright spots, and a key contributor to the MENA health tech market value that is expected to reach $2 billion by 2024.
Companies such as Vezeeta and Chefaa are thriving while providing telemedicine, diagnostics, and pharmaceutical products. Newer companies are trying to establish themselves in completely different markets.
Bypa-ss is a healthtech company that deals with health information exchange. Today, the company announced that it raised $1 million pre-seed funding, from investors like Launch Africa, Acuity Ventures and Launch Africa.
Andrew Saad, chief executive, founded the company in 2019. Saad was a medical student when he met a woman aged 62 who needed help. Hospitals would normally administer drugs after running tests and looking at the patient's medical history. The hospital and the woman did not have her medical history at the time. They were therefore unsure whether to give her medication.
TechCrunch was told by Saad that he had experienced similar situations with patients. Saad continued his academic research on electronic health records and patients' data, which was the basis for Bypa-ss.
The company was founded in Menofia's Shebin El Kom. It grew to five cities in Egypt last year. The flagship product of Bypa-s is HealthTag, which services an ecosystem that includes doctors, hospitals and patients.
HealthTag is an integrated system that allows doctors and hospitals to manage patients' cases. It was created by Bypa, after collating records from various healthcare providers.
HealthTag is a combination of a physical card and a mobile app for users. The app and card allow patients to keep track of their health and make payments online. Patients can get prescriptions and lab scans online. They also have access to a 70% discount for healthcare providers in Egypt if they pay out of pocket.
The company released a statement saying that they are consolidating and giving patients control over their health records, while also giving doctors and other healthcare providers access to the full patient history. This will allow for people-centric digital health information exchange, which is the first in Egypt and North Africa.
Bypa-ss is now equipped with the pre-seed round to help expand its network of over 3,000 healthcare providers. Saad also claims that the company's customer base has grown by 150% in the past year. The company has also grown fivefold since Bypa-ss's inception 2021, when it had six employees.
Bypa-ss had raised $150,000 in an angel round before this pre-seed round for $1 million. This brought the total investment to $1.15million. We are thrilled to invest in Bypa'ss. Plug and Play stated that Andrew and his team are certain to build Egypt's future health information infrastructure.
According to the CEO, Bypa-ss will make use of the investment to increase its growth in Egypt. We will be able offer more features to our customers, while also maintaining our growth momentum and service level. The company plans to use the funds to expand, create a mobile app that is high-tech for patients, and to facilitate information exchange between stakeholders at all levels and sizes. This will allow them to capitalize on their rapid growth.
