Serial Kenyan tech entrepreneur Mike Macharia has spent the final twenty years serving to enterprises like East Africa’s greatest telco Safaricom to create infrastructure that bolsters their progress. His agency, Seven Seas Technologies, has beforehand labored with governments, too — having been concerned within the preliminary implementation of the decentralized service supply hubs Huduma Centres, which grant residents entry to almost all authorities companies by means of a single portal.
A couple of years in the past, Macharia was additionally contracted by the Kenyan authorities to construct the now abandoned nationwide hospital info system, which he says would have reworked healthcare supply within the nation. The top of that challenge, in 2019, nevertheless, didn’t kill his innovativeness; as a substitute it impressed him to launch Ponea Health as a market for healthcare companies.
“The top of that challenge supplied a second of self-reflection, and I spotted that I had spent my whole life constructing {hardware} and software program for enterprises. However I had by no means considered constructing tech for us (the lots). I made a decision to construct from the underside up, and that’s how Ponea got here into being,” Macharia, the startup’s chief visionary officer (CVO), advised TechCrunch.
A private emergency confirmed the timeliness of the thought.
“I used to be driving from my home, and I had a nosebleed, and that was the second time it was taking place. I acquired in contact with my physician, and he advisable I take some assessments. However I feel he suspected I wouldn’t take them; it was a busy day anyway. So, he despatched a lab technician to my workplace to take samples. After the outcomes and physician’s assessment, I liaised with a pharmacy that used a rider to ship the medication,” he stated.
“In that second, I spotted the whole lot exists. The medical doctors, labs, pharmacy, cost and supply suppliers exist, however why are they not interconnected? I came upon that no person had tried to mix this complete ecosystem into one; it was one thing we would have liked to do. Why not?”
And that’s how he launched into constructing Ponea as a “genuinely patient-centric platform.”
Ponea Well being is a multitiered market that aggregates sufferers, healthcare and different service suppliers, together with these within the cost area.
It makes it simple for customers to establish physicians, amenities and/or healthcare packages based mostly on numerous components, together with want, location and charges — as price can also be included throughout itemizing.
As soon as a consumer has related with a doctor, and relying on the severity of their instances, session is finished just about or bodily. And, the place a physician recommends assessments, Ponea connects the affected person with a lab supplier for pattern assortment.
“We even have our personal phlebotomists, who gather blood samples typically, as a result of we have now realized that we have now to begin controlling the last-mile expertise for sufferers,” stated Macharia, who co-founded Ponea with Akshay Shah.
He added that all the course of is buyer pushed and backed by a name heart (medical operation centre) that ensures a easy course of for the affected person, from the second they verify in to when medicine is delivered.
To get listed on Ponea’s platform, suppliers are first vetted and rated, utilizing its personal ranking system, which makes use of information from the federal government’s database and physicians’ certifications. In addition to, sufferers are additionally capable of price suppliers based mostly on set metrics, serving to rank physicians in accordance with buyer expertise and satisfaction.
Ponea was based in June 2019, and has since January final yr signed up greater than 400 well being and well-being professionals, along with over 15,000 clients, at a 54% conversion as folks more and more search telehealth, following the sector’s COVID-induced progress. The uptake comes as telehealth is alleged to bridge the healthcare entry hole in Africa, the continent that suffers the best illness burden on the earth and the bottom patient-to-doctor ratio.
Because the adoption of telehealth continues, Ponea targets to develop its buyer base by 500,000 within the subsequent three years, and set up a presence in 4 different markets, together with South Africa, Nigeria, Egypt and Morocco.
“We have now constructed a scalable product that integrates simply with others as a result of from the phrase go, we got down to construct a platform that ought to work in any a part of the world. This implies we don’t construct what is out there. We have a look at strategic engagement by permitting API integration at a world stage,” stated Macharia.
“And, we have now discovered nice corporations each globally and domestically that we work with in superb methods, and this features a international psychological well being symptom checker we’re at the moment evaluating, and can quickly be built-in in our platform,” he stated, including that the platform is ready to gather information from wearable units too.
Ponea’s providing features a power illness administration ingredient for sufferers and their caregivers like nurses to assist synchronize info and information for higher illness supervision.
The startup additionally caters to SMEs or companies that may’t afford complete insurance coverage, or these searching for outpatient companies solely. Workers are capable of entry companies from a listing of pre-selected suppliers, and in contrast to insurance coverage, the Ponea pockets stability doesn’t expire.
Thus far, Ponea has attracted $4.3 million funding from Afya Companions, Israel-based Defend Capital, Seven Seas Applied sciences and a lot of angel buyers, together with Bhavesh Shah, Herman Langen, Franciscus Olsthoorn and Kalpesh Mehta.
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