Egyptian healthtech start-up Yodawy receives $10 million investment to streamline prescriptions

🏥 Here's Yodawy! The Egypt-based healthtech startup bridging the gap between pharmacies, insurance companies, pharmaceuticals, and patients through its innovative pharmacy benefits manager platform.

And Ezdehar, an Egypt-based PE firm, just invested $10 million to acquire a minority stake in the company.

• Founded in 2018 by Karim Khashaba, Yasser Abdel Gawad, and Sherief El-Feky, the healthtech start-up is partnered with over 3,000 pharmacies across Egypt, and has delivered over 6 million prescriptions since launching.

💰 Investor lowdown: This investment marks Ezdehar's first venture into the healthtech space and aligns with its strategy to invest $50 million via Mid-Cap Fund II in various sectors, including medical, manufacturing, insurance, and retail, targeting up to four Egyptian companies.

• This comes on the heels of Yodawy's impressive $16 million raise in the first stage of its Series B funding in February 2023, a round co-led by Delivery Hero Ventures and Global Ventures."

🧩 Fragmented landscape

Egypt's digital healthcare market is expected to reach $877 million in 2024.

But until recently it was pretty fragmented, with a glaring gap in the market between pharmacies and insurance companies, as well as a lack of automation and digitalisation in the sector.

As an example, more than 90% of Egypt’s prescriptions and insurance claims are recorded with paper. 

No big deal, right? 

Well, actually it is. 

Anachronisms like this affect every player in the value chain, leading to issues ranging from prescription errors to long processing times and queues at pharmacies and hospitals.

🛠️ Break it down

Yodawy, which means “to heal” in Arabic, have stepped in to manage the prescription cycle from start to finish 👇

• 🏥 Hospitals and doctors. Yodawy’s flagship e-prescription gateway let's physicians go paperless. According to Khashaba, around 20% of Egypt's private health insurance prescriptions are now digitised or e-prescriptions from the onset.
• 📊 Insurance companies. Yodawy’s automation engine efficiently processes prescriptions, providing approvals or referrals. Now partnered with 35 providers in Egypt, the platform also offers data analytics for detecting fraud and abuse.
• 💊 Pharmacies. Yodawy’s e-commerce platform extends their reach online, boosting sales and improving patient access to medicines.
• 🏭 Pharma companies. They can tap into Yodawy’s network of pharmacies to put their products in the hands of consumers.
• ❤️ Patient. At the heart of Yodawy's operations is patient care, managing the delivery of nearly 200,000 prescriptions monthly across 30 cities, and improving the lives of over 50,000 chronic patients by saving them countless hours in queues for essential medications.

🔮 Flashforward

Yodawy will use the fresh investment from Ezdehar to bolster its expansion efforts, focusing on enlarging its customer base, enhancing its tech-driven prescription fulfilment services, and adding greater value to the healthcare services market.