Egypt Based Health Startup, Esaal Secures $1.7 Million Seed

Esaal, one of the region’s major technological platforms for online health and wellness consultations, has closed the final tranche of its $1.7 million Seed fundraising round headed by A15.

This round takes the company’s total funding to $3 million since its inception in 2018. Esaal will use the funds to continue expanding across the MENA area, invest in product and brand development, and hire more people.

Since its inception, A15 has backed Esaal to address the growing health requirements in one of the world’s most underserved markets for health and wellness services. The platform provides a simple, frictionless, and secure wellness solution that includes text, video/voice calls, and in-person home visits with health professionals for physical health, mental health, and nutrition consultations. Consultations on a wide range of topics are available through Esaal’s comprehensive list of health professionals, including anxiety, physiotherapy, pediatrics, nutrition, and many more. Esaal is the only service in the region that provides this type of comprehensive integrated, one-stop-shop solution, saving patients time, money, and providing them with faster access to health specialists at the press of a button. Fawry, Vodafone cash, and credit card are among the payment alternatives available to users.

Since its launch, Esaal has gathered over 350 consultants from various professions who have provided health and wellness services to nearly 1 million unique customers, guaranteeing that health experts on the platform have access to a large market. Esaal offers Employee Wellness Activities for businesses of all sizes and presently serves over 5000 people in a variety of industries through partnerships with 10 mid-large sized corporations and has teamed with a number of NGOs to assist wellness-related programs.

Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, Palestine, and Iraq are among the countries where Esaal’s services are currently offered. Revenue increased by 250 percent year over year (in 2021) while profit increased by 55 percent.

“It’s been an incredible journey building a solution we’re supremely passionate about, with the unparalleled support of experienced and strategic investors like A15, who are literally building this business alongside us, with expertise that has enabled our expansion into key target markets,” says Fadi Doss, Esaal’s CEO. We’ve merely scratched the surface of an unexplored market, and we’re working hard to find more funding to support our continuing expansion. Esaal has become synonymous with reliability, quality, and easy access to health and wellness professionals that can assist consumers in achieving better results.”

“There are millions more individuals throughout a vast region who would benefit from our unique approach to holistic health,” he continued, “and we are happy to be in a position to continue growing and connecting more health professionals with patients in underserved regions.”

“From the time we started working with the Esaal team, we recognized this was a firm with the laser focus and vision to develop something really unique and purpose-driven in its market,” said Karim Beshara, Managing Partner at A15. They have been careful in their capital deployment to date, displaying great unit economics efficiencies that have allowed them to achieve their expansion goals. We are pleased to watch their progress and have loved working with them over the previous four years. There is so much more to come from Esaal and this sector, and as they continue to scale across the MENA region, it’s exciting to see not just the significant growth and returns, but the difference the team continues to make with the services they are enabling users to access for better health.”

Every week, 105 million people in the MENA region use online services to engage with retailers and professionals. Esaal sees a massive vacuum in a large addressable market with high levels of obesity among adults, particularly in high-income nations like the Gulf Cooperation Council countries (GCC). In addition, there is a shortage of doctors who are unable to satisfy expanding demand for consultations, a shortage of hospital beds, and a growing mental health crisis, with 35 percent of MENA populations reporting frequent stress and 29 percent suffering from depression on average. Esaal is working to expand its services so that more people in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) can benefit from better holistic health solutions.