With the increased awareness of healthcare, several startups have cropped up in this sector to offer better services to customers. One such startup is CarePay International operating with the mission to give people the power to care by connecting healthcare providers, beneficiaries and health payers via its mobile platform.
Founded in 2015 in Kenya, this Dutch-African mobile health payments startup works in partnership with Safaricom, the operator of M-PESA, one of the successful mobile money services in the world. CarePay’s platform lets users efficiently communicate and transact through smart contracts. As of now, this platform has over 4 million people and 1,200 healthcare providers.
Raised €40M funding
In a recent development, CarePay International has completed Series A funding round of $45 million (close to €40 million). This growth capital has come from a mix of investors such as Dutch private equity funds IFHA-II and impact investor ELMA Investments and the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs that invested through the PharmAccess Group.
CarePay International will use this funding to expand its mobile platform beyond Kenya. The company is in plans to launch its platform in new markets such as Tanzania and Nigeria. With this funding, CarePay becomes the best funded African startups.
Assures quality and affordable healthcare
The company’s platform lets people in Africa who cannot access quality and affordable healthcare services connect with healthcare providers. CarePay International works with private and public health payers to make this possible.
“The mobile phone allows you to reach everyone at almost no extra cost, this creates unprecedented opportunities for health insurance schemes”, said Onno Schellekens, CEO of CarePay International. CarePay International digitally connects health payers such as insurers, beneficiaries and healthcare providers on to one mobile platform, so that they can transact and communicate with each other in real-time. Due to the permanent connection to all stakeholders, making real-time payments becomes possible if required.
Tom McPartland, a Board member of ELMA Investments, says that “Universal Health Coverage in Africa will only be possible if governments and their citizens can provide and access health services from both the public and private sectors through seamless and efficient mechanisms, CarePay brings that ambitious vision within the realm of possibility.” Max Coppoolse, IFHA-II’s Managing Partner adds “The current health insurance model excludes huge parts of the African population as the administrative costs are too high, there is not enough data and outpatient costs cannot be controlled. CarePay’s mobile technology addresses all these elements and in addition offers cross-sale opportunities and other significant growth prospects for insurers.”
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