The Arabic medical portal Altibbi has closed a round of funding that is set to further shape the online medical information sector for the MENA region. 

While the investment amount has not been revealed by the company we do know that those involved include the pan Arab fund Middle East Venture Partners and Dash Ventures from Jordan. “Our investors chose Altibbi because of the traction it has proven in the past few years,” said founder and Managing Partner Jalil Allabadi, “and because of the model it has been changing to adopt interactivity.” 

According to Allabadi the undisclosed amount is going to be dedicated to “increasing the level and quantity of interactivity between physicians and patients.” He also told Wamda that as a premier medical app provider they will be maximizing their reach around the Arab world. As well as a plan to increase the number of doctors in their user base they have their sights set on increasing users in KSA, UAE, Kuwait, Jordan and Lebanon. “Altibbi’s vision is to become ‘the’ Arabic medical platform,” says Allabadi, “for all medical and health interactions in the Arab world.” 

Since Wamda first wrote about the Amman based Altibbi in 2012 they have come a long way. Now with more than five million unique visitors a month, and five mobile apps, the medical online platform oversees more than 5,000 interactions a month amongst a network of more than 1,500 physicians and users. The portal’s services include a physicians network, a symptom checker, and medical advice, through articles, videos, and infographics

The efforts of the company, which started in 2010 as an online medical dictionary, to inform an Arab population of 350 million with up to date health care advice, have been recognized time and again with awards, the most recent of them being the World Summit Award Mobile (WSA-mobile) for best mobile medical content. The global initiative, that works with the co-operation of the UN’s World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) has ranked Altibbi amongst the world’s top 40 mobile apps. They will be collecting their award in February 2015 at World Summit Global Congress in Abu Dhabi.