A South African e-health startup, Vitruvian Medical Diagnostics has raised US$659,000 in funding to enhance its technology and launch more pilots. The company was established in 2020 and it combines state-of-the-art artificial intelligence and biomedical engineering to provide affordable, highly accurate diagnostic tools for medical laboratories with the aim of serving emerging markets.
Co-founder and chief executive officer (CEO) of the company, Ifthakaar Shaik, VitruvianMD said: “The core of our business is to deliver AI-powered diagnostic software into areas that are under-resourced and till today, we have developed a platform that allows it in different fields of pathology. To further facilitate access, we have also built a high quality and affordable camera that can retrofit any microscope instantly allowing digital tele-pathology.”
“Our platform is robust enough to be utilized in any form of microscopy-based diagnostics, and is proved by our pilots in hematology, histopathology, fertility, and parasitology.”
Singapore-based Verge Healthtech Fund and a host of angel investors led VitruvianMD’s eight-figure ZAR funding round. The finance will be used to accelerate VitruvianMD’s startup technology and to fund the rollout of additional pilots.
“With this funding, the goal is to reach commercialization of at least one of our diagnostic modules within the next 18 months,” Shaik said.
For the short term, at least, the African e-health space is one of the few that may benefit from the global COVID-19 crisis. Yet it remains debatable whether the sector has the ability to succeed in a post-COVID 19 world. In this time of continental healthcare crisis, and forced behavioral change, Africa’s e-health startups have been forced to prove they have what it takes to fill gaps in service delivery
Just like VitruvianMD, some other health-focused startups across Africa have reacted by launching new health services or reformatting existing services, such as Kenya’s Ilara Health, Ghana’s Redbird, and Cameroon’s OuiCare.
COVID-19 is also spurring uptake of e-health solutions, as patients are asked to stay home and, understandably, are worried to go to their local, crowded health facility.
According to MarketWatch, with a CAGR of 8.8% in the forecast period of 2021 to 2025, eHealth Market Size is expected to reach US$227,460 million by 2025, from US$162,390 million in 2019.
