• BFree

  Participated · Equity · Feb 2024

  Founded in 2020 and headquartered in Lagos, BFree builds post-loan infrastructure to acquire, assess and recover non-performing loan portfolios across Africa. The company uses machine learning to profile defaulting borrowers, predict repayment capacity and customise engagement through automated bots and self-service portals while avoiding punitive measures such as late fees or blacklisting. To date it reports having handled over $740M of distressed loans and interacting with roughly 6.6 million borrowers, serving more than 30 financial institutions across Nigeria, Ghana and Kenya. BFree has shifted from offering SaaS collections tools toward actively buying written-off or delinquent loans and managing recoveries internally. The startup is exploring technical extensions including blockchain and DeFi tools to streamline secondary debt trading. Its current financing mix includes equity and multiple debt facilities that the company is deploying to scale NPL acquisitions and ethical recovery operations.

• Ilara Health

  Participated · Series A · Feb 2024

  Ilara Health is a Kenya-based healthtech that enables private clinics to acquire diagnostic devices, pharmaceuticals and other clinic items on credit. The company began by leasing diagnostic devices to clinics in 2019 and has since expanded its offering to include pharmaceuticals, hospital furniture and a subscription practice-management software. Ilara serves about 3,000 clinics across Kenya and charges KSh.1000 (~$6.25) monthly for its software, which digitizes operations and supplies data for reporting and credit assessment. It partners with manufacturers such as Butterfly Network to provide low-cost portable ultrasound devices and other equipment. The startup plans to use new funding to scale operations in Kenya and to roll out a B2B health and occupational service that gives uninsured workers access to partner clinics for a fixed monthly fee. Management also intends to use clinic data from the software to support credit ratings and lend up to $15,000 in working capital to clinics. Ilara Health is a Nairobi-based diagnostics health-tech service provider that partners with healthcare facilities to expand access to basic diagnostic tests. Since its 2018 inception the company has grown partnerships across Nairobi and Kisumu from 15 to 200 facilities and aims to make diagnostics more accessible and affordable to over 500 million Africans. It recently raised $3.75 million in Series A funding led by TLcom Capital with participation from DOB Equity, Global Ventures, and Chandaria Capital to fund service expansion and technology investment. CEO and co-founder Emilian Popa said the company will widen its disease-indication coverage and create end-to-end value across the care delivery process. Ilara plans to reach patients who currently struggle to access lifesaving tests and to develop data-driven insights to improve quality of care across the continent. The new capital is intended to accelerate service expansion and build the company's technological capabilities across its partner network. Ilara Health distributes low-cost, AI-powered diagnostic devices bundled with its proprietary electronic medical record (EMR) system to primary-care doctors in peri-urban and rural clinics. The EMR records patient data and helps clinicians provide effective patient management while the diagnostics enable testing at the point of care. The company says it was started to help doctors bring diagnostics to the roughly 500 million people in sub-Saharan Africa who need them most and notes that about 70% of patients need some form of medical test to inform treatment. Ilara will use the new funding to grow its peri-urban clinic customer base in Kenya and to build a flexible technology platform to manage and protect patient health and clinic financial data. The startup was founded by CEO Emilian Popa, COO Amaan Banwait and VP sales Hannes Eckmayr and is based in Nairobi, Kenya. The company also received a Columbia Business School Tamer Fund seed grant award (seed grants up to $25,000) announced in late July.

• Helium Health

  Participated · Series B · Jun 2023

  Helium Health provides a core EMR and hospital-management product (HeliumOS), a telemedicine/revenue-cycle product (HeliumDoc) and an embedded finance product (HeliumCredit) that leverages operational data to underwrite loans. The company says HeliumOS is used across more than 1,000 facilities by over 10,000 health workers to care for more than 1 million patients, and the team of about 150 operates in eight countries. HeliumCredit, launched in 2020, has grown lending from $250,000 to over $3.5 million across 200+ facilities and is used to finance equipment, inventory and expansions. Helium Health has received grant funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and MSD for Mothers to support maternal health projects. The startup plans to roll out HeliumOS in GCC markets and expand HeliumDoc in East Africa while concentrating new capital on expanding HeliumCredit. Helium Health provides a suite of products that digitize data, formalize monetization and enable telemedicine for hospitals and health systems in Nigeria, Liberia and Ghana. Its offerings include administrative tools, electronic medical records, financial management, digital payment and credit products for hospitals and insurers, plus developer resources. The company recently launched the MyHelium Patient app to facilitate appointments and information sharing and rapidly rolled out a telemedicine platform that onboarded roughly 360 hospitals in three weeks and generated thousands of online visits. Helium generates revenues by charging percentages and fees on its products, services and transactions; the CEO says the startup is profitable and generates revenues in the millions of dollars. Founded in 2016 and based in Lagos, the team says it has declined acquisition offers and aims to scale independently. It plans to use new funding to hire and expand into North and East Africa, including Kenya, Rwanda, Uganda and Morocco. Helium Health builds holistic hospital management software to digitize hospital operations and patient records, reduce wait times, and improve patient confidence. The company uses a customized subscription model where hospitals buy credits (one credit = one patient for 365 days) and often subsidizes hardware purchases for clients. Since piloting in 2016 it has deployed its system across West Africa, with client counts reported above 60–70 hospitals and teams in multiple cities and countries. The startup has grown its headcount to over 60 employees and has invested funding into product development, sales/marketing, and hiring. Its commercial traction includes deals with state governments (Akwa Ibom) and deployments across Lagos, Akwa Ibom, Abuja and Liberia. Financially, the company raised early prize funding and accelerator capital and has raised in excess of $2 million within its first two years of operations.

No current team members are available.