Nigeria’s Healthtracka gets $1.5m to expand medical diagnostics
BY ROSEMARY IWUALA
Healthtracka, a Nigerian-based health tech which offers convenient at-home lab tests, has raised $1.5 million in seed funding, the company announced in a statement Tuesday.
The funding, which is coming after Healthtracka participated in the Techstars Toronto accelerator programme between October 2021 and January 2022, will assist it in its next growth phase.
Healthtracka plans to introduce new product features and expand its at-home lab testing services into Kenya and Ghana in the coming months. It also wants to expand its offering by launching an API that will allow both telemedicine services and traditional healthcare providers to offer at-home lab testing.
This round of funding is led by venture capital investors Ingressive Capital and Hustle Fund, with participation from angel investors Alunmi Angels Alliance and Flying Doctors.
Healthtracka is a website where individuals book their lab tests online, have their samples collected at their houses and access their results on their email addresses within 48 hours. The tests range from fertility and STD tests to full body count and COVID tests. It also offers specialist consultation after patients have received their results.
Founded by Ifeoluwa Dare-Johnson and Victor Amusan in May 2021, Healthtracka focuses on preventive care and partners with lab centers, which send their phlebotomists to patients’ houses to collect samples, analyse them and return results in two days. But while a typical test covers phlebotomists’ trips and doctors’ reviewing results, customers pay extra when Healthtracka connects them with specialists if the diagnosis is worrying.
Healthtracka currently has 50 different medical tests, which it has offered 7,000 times to 5,000 users at home, using a network of 700 phlebotomists, across seven Nigerian cities—Lagos, Abuja, Port Harcourt, Benin, Kaduna, Ilorin, and Ibadan.
The $1.5 million funding will assist Healthtracka to expand its operations into other Nigerian cities and other parts of Africa.
“We have realised, especially in the countries we are expanding to, that the infrastructure deficit problem is the same. Somehow, we want to power digital diagnostics and empower healthcare providers to reach their customers where they are comfortable,” Dare-Johnson, Healthtracka’s chief executive, said in an earlier interview.
The expansion will help Healthtracka reach more people, save more lives and ensure that healthcare is better in Africa, especially in the places that need it the most.