$1.5 M funding raised by SA e-health startup RecoMed for Kenyan expansion
RecoMed, a South African online healthcare marketplace and booking platform, has raised US $1.5 million in finance ahead of its planned expansion to Kenya next year.
RecoMed integrates numerous patients booking channels into its platform, allowing patients to quickly schedule appointments with a varied range of healthcare practitioners in their region. This helps RecoMed to drive more patient traffic to healthcare practices.
RecoMed is a web-based booking system that connects patients and organisations to over 2,500 public and private medical doctors, allied health professionals, and pharmacy clinics around the country. Every month, the startup facilitates approximately 150,000 healthcare appointments.
Following a US $1.5 million fundraising round headed by Vunani Fintech Fund, an investment vehicle focused on digital and tech-based solutions, which made a US $1 million investment, RecoMed is now looking to expand internationally. Existing RecoMed investors AAIC, Growth Grid Venture Capital Partners, and Kenya-based Push Ventures also participated in the round.
“This successful round of funding has powered our continued growth to over 150,000 bookings per month, and significantly boosts our ability to launch the new products. We are facilitating over ZAR250 million (US $16.5 million) of healthcare spend annually,” said RecoMed chief executive officer (CEO) Sheraan Amod.
“Our key partners have bought into our innovative methodology of connecting practitioners and patients, not only because of our integrations with most Practice Management Applications but due to our aggregation of the largest selection of healthcare industry providers into a single platform with instant booking capability. Whether a patient is looking for a convenient doctor appointment or the COVID-19 vaccine jab, we make it simple and easy to do.”
“We’ve made great strides in uniting the fragmented healthcare marketplace into a more effective platform to benefit both patients and health practitioners. We look forward to announcing new initiatives and product launches that will advance our healthcare industry. Our vision is a society where access to and delivery of healthcare is easy for all,” said Amod.
RecoMed wants to deploy its platform in Kenya in January 2022, after becoming the market leader in South Africa.
RecoMed’s stated push to gain market share and build customised new solutions to fulfill recognised market demands is seen favourably by Vunani Fintech Fund.
“Globally we have witnessed a significant uptake in the rollout of these digital health-tech platforms, and RecoMed’s innovation has kept South Africa well up to date with these developments. We are still in the early days of leveraging technology as a utility in healthcare, so the potential here is massive. We are confident that this latest round of fundraising will make a major contribution towards promoting greater efficiencies in the health ecosystem that will benefit all stakeholders,” said Mark Anderson, director at Vunani.
