Impact investor and business incubator, Villgro Kenya, has selected 3 health-tech startups based in East Africa, and awarded them $20,000 each.
The three early-stage startups were selected from 38 applicants. They are all hardware-based health innovations. They are:
- A-lite(Uganda): a low cost, non-invasive vein locater that aims to decrease the risk of tissue death, increased trauma while reducing the work burden of clinicians associated with locating barely visible veins among children.
- Kijenzi(Kenya): a 3D printing service ensures health centers in low-income communities are able to produce medical equipment replacement parts when they need it. This helps reduce procurement timelines and increases efficiency and access to care while delivering quality at a lower cost.
- Wekebere(Uganda): combines connected devices with data analytics to increase access to care, provide personalized feedback to mothers, and help doctors earlier predict and manage pregnancy complications in low resource settings.
CEO Villgro Kenya, Robert Karanja, said, “With the advent of the 4th Industrial Revolution in healthcare, hardware innovations continue to show great potential in driving UHC in Africa. Their ability to provide access to quality healthcare services to the underserved continues to front them as good investments for health impact in Africa. We are happy to partner with all these organizations to support their innovations on their journey to scale.”
Related: Ilaya Health raises $735k to grow operations in Kenya
CEO of A-lite, Julius Mubiru, said, “On behalf of A-Lite Uganda Limited, I would like to take this opportunity to thank Villgro Kenya for accepting to support our innovation. The $20,000 financial support means so much to us, and we are ready to utilize this grant to clinically test our product, refine our device’s technology so as to acquire relevant device approvals, and validate our business model.”
“We believe that our innovation will have a huge impact in terms of addressing challenges with intravenous drug administration.”
The three selected startups will receive financial support, mentorship, access to networks of healthcare and product development experts and connections to investors and strategic partners.
