Healthtech Yodawy bags $16M to expand into emerging markets

Egypt-based digital healthcare startup Yodawy has raised $16 million in a Series B funding round co-led by Delivery Hero Ventures and Global Ventures, bringing its total funding to $24.5 million.

 The round witnessed participation from AAIC Investment and Dallah Albaraka, along with existing investors, including Middle East Venture Partners (MEVP), C-Ventures, and P1 Ventures.

Yodawy plans to use the new funding to fuel the growth of Yodawy’s Care Program for Chronic patients, which offers monthly medication refills to enrolled patients. The financing will also assist in automating its operations and fund regional expansion.

Founded in 2018, Yodawy connects users to pharmacies, doctors, and insurance companies. It also couples app users with pharmaceutical and fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) firms, allowing them to browse and order their required prescriptions. In the 18 months since its Series A round, Yodawy’s revenue grew by 400%, according to the statement.

Noor Sweid, managing partner at Global Ventures, one of the leading investors in Yodawy, said that Yodawy helps over 50,000 recurring chronic patients monthly and saves more than 100,000 monthly hours of queuing.

Yodawy has processed over four million prescriptions and partnered with 20 health insurance companies and 3,000 pharmacies as of February 9, 2023.

The modern-day healthcare platform, Yodawy also launched an e-prescription gateway in Egypt, which allows physicians to go paperless along with seven insurance companies and health management organizations. The program generates more than 2,000 e-prescriptions daily.

 According to Yodawy, 99% of prescriptions and claims in the emerging pharma-retail markets are still paper-based, which typically leads to long processing times, pharmacy queues, prescriptions errors, and results in low medication adherence by patients.

Egypt’s health-tech sector remains nascent yet attractive to a country with a population of over 100 million. Few players are operating in the field in the North-African country. In October 2022, digital healthcare platform Vezeeta closed its Series E funding round, bringing its total funds to nearly $90 million. In late November 2022, Cairo-based digital pharmacy platform Grinta raised $8 million in a seed funding round co-led by Raed Ventures and Nclude, carrying $9.5 million of raised funds in total.

www.yodawy.com