Nigerian Drone Delivery Startup Arone Has Launched to Deliver Medical Supplies to Primary Health Centers

Nigerian aerial logistics startup Arone Delivery has launched to provide on-demand delivery services of medical supplies to primary healthcare centers (PHC) with the use of drones.

Launched in March 2018 by Emmanuel Ezenwere, an AI engineer with background in applied mathematics, Arone operates a drone delivery service to deliver medical supplies to primary healthcare centers as well as transport samples from these PHCs to central laboratories to provide access to early diagnosis and vital medical supplies.

Speaking in an interview with Innovation Village, Emmanuel said, “I’ve always wanted to apply engineering and technology to build solutions that solve real

Problems and impact the lives of people. So, during the second year of my undergraduate studies at the University Of Nigeria, I attended an entrepreneurship workshop and that was the beginning of my journey as an entrepreneur.

“A few months later, I took a trip to Lagos, where I experienced the trafficking epidemic first hand.  During my stay in Lagos, I met with Temi, the founder of Lifebank at CChub. When she heard of my ideas for drone delivery she narrated the challenges encountered transporting blood whenever there was dense traffic and remarked how our delivery drones would be a great solution and they would be our first client.

“This was the first and most significant feedback I got and that provided the early motivation I needed to start Arone.”

Arone derives uniqueness from its ability to utilize fully autonomous drones for delivery and because they fly they have the advantage of taking more optimal routes between point A to B, they are also unaffected by traffic and poor road conditions. These factors make them considerably faster than road based forms of delivery. Also, this system of delivery service is much more affordable compared to road-based delivery services because the drones are fully autonomous, which implies they navigate intelligently without the need of a human pilot. So that cuts down the cost of paying a human driver. In summary, the aerial delivery service is faster, more affordable and scalable.

Speaking on how Arone operates, the founder said, “At Arone, we rent out fleets of autonomous delivery drones to blood banks and other medical supplies distribution centers to provide a faster delivery of vital medical products to neighboring rural clinics on request.

“We set up drone delivery stations at medical supplies storage and distribution centers and onboard all neighboring primary health care centers and hospitals within a 100km radius from these stations. We then deliver medical supplies such as blood units, medicine, and other medical products on demand using our autonomous delivery drones.

“We as well collect and transport test samples from these primary healthcare centers and hospitals to central better-equipped laboratories for testing hence making quality healthcare more accessible, affordable and sustainable for these primary healthcare centers and hospitals and in doing this ensure laboratory equipment and machines mostly under 10% utilization in Nigeria are fully utilized, creating more value and profitability for labs.”

According to Emmanuel, the startup has had a good deal of traction with recognition and funding from within and outside Nigeria.

“We are currently prototyping our delivery drones. Over the past few months, we have gained significant traction, from winning the Slush Global Impact Accelerator regional competition, here in Nigeria where we emerged as first place winners and proceeded to represent Nigeria in Helsinki, Finland at the Slush 2018 event.

“We were also selected by the Office for ICT Innovation and Entrepreneurship (OIIE) & National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) as one of the most innovative technology startups in Nigeria and we also had the opportunity of exhibiting Arone at the GITEX 2018 event in Dubai.”

“Also, we’ve raised funding and we are currently in the process of a pre-seed investment. We setup Arone drone delivery stations at medical supplies distribution centers such as blood banks and rent our drones at $5 per delivery per drone. We then onboard all rural and urban clinics within a 100km and deliver vital medical supplies such as medicine, blood units and vaccines to these clinics on request using our delivery drones.

“We also transport test samples from underequipped primary health care centers in rural communities to central laboratories to enable these clinics to have access to early diagnosis and better quality health care,” the founder told Innovation Village

Despite recording a good deal of traction, Arone Delivery has had its fair share of challenges. One of the major challenges was skill gap, given the lack of application-oriented education.

“It was a big challenge to find really skilled Aerospace and Aerial Systems engineers to recruit.This eventually became an opportunity for us to diversify our team to include foreign talent,” Emmanuel said.

Giving his perspectives on the growing startup ecosystem in Nigeria, Emmanuel said, “I am proud of the recent trends in the Nigerian startup ecosystem, I see entrepreneurs leveraging on technology to solve big problems in the country without being afraid to disrupt industries and big players in various industries.

“We still have a lot pressing problems that need solutions with great business opportunities. The Nigerian startup ecosystem needs active participation from the Nigerian government to create an enabling environment for startups as well as the right conditions to attract local and foreign investors to invest in Nigerian startups.

“To address the skill gap problems in the country, Educational Institutions should be more application oriented. This is mostly why we don’t have many startups in the country inventing innovative tech products.”

On future plans for Arone Delivery, the founder said, “Our future plans include raising capital to enable us to manufacture more drones, complete our drone license procurement process, launch our operations in Nigeria and first scale across the country before we begin our expansion plans for other Sub-African regions”

While advising young aspiring entrepreneurs, he said, “Aspiring entrepreneurs should be more impact-oriented. Think about how much impact and difference your solution can make. Be resilient, patient and have a growth mindset.

“There’s a Japanese proverb that says “Nana korobi ya oki” which means fall down seven times and get up eight. At first, all the steps you should take might not be clear, but once you have the aforementioned character and trust the process. You will be fine.”