Villgro Kenya, an early stage startup incubator focusing on health ventures in East Africa pumped US$80,000 into activities of Maisha Meds and Turaco.
The two companies have developed solutions to improve health access for low income Kenyans.
Maisha Meds, a software platform for ensuring that rural pharmacists and clinicians effectively purchase quality affordable medicines and pass on subsidies to patients, received $40,000 in grant funding from Villgro Kenya.
According to Villgro Kenya, the funding comes with mentorship and technical expertise to develop their business model and scale.
The system developed by the startup provides rural patients who often visit local pharmacies first for basic care with quality and affordable drugs purchased through the Maisha Meds platform.
This helps tackle the challenge of market access for pharmaceutical companies and providers, ensuring that high-quality medicines are affordable by patients and that counterfeit and substandard medicines are excluded from the supply chain.
Speaking on the Maisha Meds innovation, Moses Waweru, Senior Programs Manager at Villgro Kenya mentioned the platform relieves patients of the burden of purchasing expensive medicine while ensuring quality care.
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Pharmacies will also be able to make smart orders using sales data generated from the system and take stock of their inventory and sales.
Jessica Vernon, Maisha Meds CEO expressed her excitement to join Villgro Kenya’s incubation program saying, “The mission of Maisha Meds is to develop systems to improve access to high quality and affordable medicines. We are incredibly excited to work with Villgro in this mission, and have heard wonderful things about the support that Villgro provides companies working to scale health technologies in East Africa.”
Turaco which offers health loans bundled with insurance so their clients can get care whenever a medical emergency arises also received $40,000 in grant funding from Villgro Kenya.
“Turaco is changing the game in healthcare financing for emerging consumers. We are thrilled to have the support of Villgro to launch our innovative insurance and health loan products in Kenya and Uganda,” said Ted Pantone Turaco – Co-founder & CEO.
“Finding sufficient money to pay for healthcare is a major problem for a big part of society, which causes many people to delay seeking treatment until their condition is more advanced, and more expensive to treat. At worst healthcare costs are a primary factor pushing people back into poverty. We’re excited about Turaco’s experienced team, and innovative and scalable approach to solving this problem,” Paul Belknap, Villgro Kenya’s COO stated.
Villgro Kenya commits to supporting East African based health start-ups with seed funding, customized guidance for start-ups to scale and access to industry experts and stakeholders for product development, market knowledge and downstream investors.
With support from USAID, Venturewell, GearBox among other organizations, Villgro Kenya has also previously invested in Matibabu, ClinicPesa, Flare etc.
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