Egyptian Healthtech Startup, Yodawy Completes $16 Million in a Series B Round to Promote Growth

Yodawy, a pharmacy benefits platform established in 2018 with the goal of restructuring Egypt’s drug supply chain, has secured $16 million in a Series B financing to support its expansion beyond the Middle East and Africa.

With the help of Yodawy’s platform, insurance firms and hospitals may streamline approvals, reduce expenses, and enhance customer satisfaction. Additionally, pharmacies gain a presence online and increase sales thanks to the platform’s e-commerce functionality.

Delivery Hero Ventures, a UAE-based and MEA-focused venture capital firm, Singapore’s AAIC Investment, Saudi Arabia’s Dallah Al-Baraka, and existing investors from the $7.5 million Series A round of funding for digital healthcare in 2019—Middle East Venture Partners (MEVP), C Ventures, and P1 Ventures—participated in this round of funding.

Yodawy’s CEO and co-founder Karim Khashaba told TechCrunch that the company intends to maximize the investment by expanding its markets throughout the Middle East and Africa, where there is a $60 billion market opportunity for the pharmaceutical industry.

However, he contributed to the investment’s cause by saying;

Our network of insurance partners and employer-sponsored medical plans is extensive. We pretty much oversee the entire prescription value chain, from the point at which a doctor generates a digital prescription to the point at which a payer processes a prescription, all the way to the fulfillment infrastructure that currently oversees the delivery of nearly 200,000 prescriptions per month across 30 cities in Egypt.

The beginning of Yodawy’s journey, its successes and shortcomings.

In the Beginning

Yodawy’s journey in Egypt began in 2018 with the establishment of the business by Karim Khashaba, COO Yasser AbdelGawad, and CTO Sherief El-Feky.

They created a framework for their partners’ services, including those of insurance companies, healthcare organizations, pharmacies, and FMCG and pharmaceutical firms. This establishment’s main goal is to link them up with both commercial and individual customers.

The accomplishments

With seven insurance providers and health management organizations participating in the program, Yodawy recently unveiled a flagship e-prescription gateway that enables doctors to go paperless and generates more than 2,000 e-prescriptions each day.

The Egyptian business is the first fully-fledged pharmacy benefit manager with a technological foundation to control the entire prescription cycle, whether by building an e-prescription gateway for hospitals and doctors or an approval automation engine for insurance companies.

In the past 18 months, its price-based revenue has increased by 400%. With the achievement of this milestone, it has solidified its position as the majority of the approximately 300 corporate pharmaceutical businesses in the Egyptian market’s key partner for providing chronic medication to their patients’ (workers’) needs.

With the help of its platform, insurance firms and hospitals may streamline approvals, reduce expenses, and enhance customer service. Patients (via employer-led medical schemes) can benefit from Yodawy’s e-commerce service as they get their medications and drugs delivered to their doorsteps. Pharmacies also get an online presence and increase sales.

The Challenges

Since its founding, the Egyptian corporation has made some notable advancements, but there are also certain weaknesses.

Prescription errors plague Yodawy’s stakeholders because more than 90% of insurance claims and prescriptions in Egypt are written on paper. This hinders all participants in the value chain with problems including prescription errors, lengthy processing times, and long lines at pharmacies and hospitals.

It also lacks capability during the final mile. Delivery Hero Ventures’ strategic investment in the startup is based on the possibility that it will collaborate with Delivery Hero to manage that crucial aspect of its operations.

What has Yodawy just said?

According to Yodawy’s statement, the investment revenues will support the expansion of its renowned Care Program for chronic patients, which handles daily deliveries across 38 Egyptian cities and provides enrolled patients with monthly prescription refills.

As the business plans to continue automating its operations, enabling larger-scale prescription processing, and increase current tech-enabled fulfilment capabilities, this will also help to service a fast expanding patient population.