LifeBank has closed its seed round led by EchoVC Pan-Africa Fund. Also participating in the round was CcHub Growth Capital and an undisclosed healthcare angel investor.
LifeBank is a last mile medical supply chain company which leverages technology to discover, organize and deliver essential medical products to hospitals and in the process, acquires actionable data. The company is initially focused on optimizing blood supplies given the size, fragmentation and severity of the need.
Targeted use of funding proceeds will be to extend its supply chain to include oxygen, vaccines, blood components and rare drugs as well as expand its coverage across Nigeria, particularly to Northern Nigeria, where reaching the last mile remains a very pressing issue. Launched in 2016, LifeBank™ currently has over 41 authenticated blood banks on its online platform and has delivered to 167 hospitals. LifeBank’s optimized supply chain has helped save over 1,000 lives so far.
Its smart logistics system includes specially designed cold chain boxes that retains temperature for up to 30 hours, color-coded temperature strips for additional quality assurance and Bluetooth-enabled locks to guarantee security.
LifeBank’s goal is to continue to breakdown the challenges of medical supply logistics with technology-driven approaches. It is working on a host of supply chain-focused solutions such as employing AI techniques to predict blood needs at the hospital level and utiizing blockchain technology to store authenticated non-alterable product information. The company also plans to use drones to serve hard-toreach rural clinics.
The company was founded by Temie Giwa-Tubosun, who previously worked in the public health sector with institutions like WHO, UNDP, DFID, Fairview Health Systems and with the Lagos State Government managing health facilities. Temie was listed as one of the ‘100 Women Changing the World’ by the BBC in 2014, and as an African Innovator by the World Economic Forum in 2017. The company’s efforts have also been recently recognized by Merck & Co., Inc. (NYSE:MRK), which made LifeBank™ the first African company to be invited into the Merck Global Accelerator Program.
In Africa, with only 1% of the population donating blood, the supply falls well short of the need. In Nigeria, for instance, the annual equivalent of 1.8 million units is required, however less than one-third of that is collected annually. It is estimated that at least 10,000 women in Nigeria die every year from pregnancy-related hemorrhages due to blood shortages. In private hospitals, valuable time is spent calling local blood banks to source blood which process also includes seeking accurate blood type information and actual quantities required. Depending on the blood type and quantity required, sourcing and delivering blood to the desperate patient can take between 3 hours and 2-3 days.
LifeBank has cut the process to under 55 minutes (with a target of 30 minutes) and blood is delivered to hospitals at more competitive prices. The company has never left any whole blood order unfulfilled. Given the shortage of blood, predominantly filled by involuntary donors – 5% from voluntary donors, 30% family replacements and 60% for commercial donors – LifeBank™ is tackling this issue by fostering a blood donation culture through public awareness campaigns and offering a blood donor smartphone application to help lift voluntary donations from 5% to 100% and thus guarantee safe and consistent blood supply. With the LifeBank™ blood donor application, donors can easily book appointments, donate blood and earn reward points at various government operated blood banks across Lagos.
“LifeBank is on a mission to build a big business that saves lives. Busy hospitals across the developing world often struggle to access essential medical products that they need to deliver great world-class care. When this happens, people die, especially vulnerable people”, said Temie Giwa-Tubosun, CEO and founder.
“LifeBank collates real-time inventory information, deploys the information to hospital clients using both high and low tech, and moves products in the right condition and on time. Our big audacious goal is to build the best healthcare supply chain that can promptly deliver essential medical products to every last mile point in the developing world.”
“Solving local healthcare problems at scale is a very important focus for our firm and we are very excited to invest in a company that is providing innovative healthcare-related solutions to life-threatening problems not just in Nigeria but across Africa,” said Uche
Ogboi of EchoVC Partners. “We are thrilled to welcome another elite female founder to our portfolio and look forward to working with closely with Temie and the LifeBank team to drive and deliver high-impact solutions in our healthcare ecosystems.”
With this investment, Uche Ogboi from EchoVC Partners has joined LifeBank’s Board of Directors.
