Source: Disrupt Africa

Egyptian e-health startup Chefaa has closed a six-figure US dollar seed funding round from Flat6Labs and 500 Startups as it plans geographic expansion and the rollout of more products.

Founded in May 2017, Chefaa helps patients make scheduled medicine orders in a bid to tackle challenges with accessing medication in a timely fashion.

Users can locate medicine using a real-time search engine, make orders, and schedule deliveries with a GPS functionality. It also runs a medicine-dedicated CSR platform to match donations with low-income patients.

Chefaa received pre-seed funding from Flat6labs Cairo in 2018, as well as a social impact grant from the StartEgypt initiative, and has now closed its seed round. The undisclosed investment, which Disrupt Africa has been told is a six-figure US dollar amount, comes from Flat6Labs and 500 Startups, and will be used to help the startup expand both geographically and in terms of its product offering.

“We are currently serving nine Egyptian cities, including Delta and Upper Egypt, and we plan to cover Egypt totally by the end of this year. We will start our expansion plans to the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) region by the end of this year as well,” said Dr. Rasha Rady, co-founder and chief operating officer (COO) of Chefaa.

Chefaa is free to use for patients, with the startup charging pharmacies a commission fee on transactions and a monthly subscription fee in case of scheduled monthly packages for chronic patients. It also charges monthly subscription fees to medical and pharmaceutical organisations in return for access to insights.

“In just 12 months we have fulfilled more than 93,000 orders through over 800 pharmacies, and generated total sales of more than US$1 million,” said Rady.