Source: Disrupt Africa

Kenyan e-health startup Ilara Health has raised a US$3.75 million Series A funding round to expand its diagnostic reach across the continent and accelerate the development of its integrated patient health management platform.

Ilara Health provides affordable diagnostic equipment to patients and healthcare providers in peri-urban areas and has partnered with more than 200 clinics, enabling access to life-saving point of care diagnostic tools to thousands of patients across Kenya. 

The startup’s underlying technology seamlessly integrates these diagnostic tools into easy to manage tablets and mobile phones that require minimal training to operate. Ilara raised a seed funding round in August of last year to help it scale its offering, and in October secured a US$1.1 million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Its Series A round was led by TLcom Capital, with participation from DOB Equity, Global Ventures and Chandaria Capital, and will be used to help the fast-growing Nairobi-based company expand further. It is looking to expand across wider Kenya and into a new East African market within the next 12 months.

“This funding round allows us to significantly grow our on-the-ground presence and invest resources into our technology capabilities. In just one year of operation, we have seen the incredible impact our Ilara Health platform has had in delivering improved services across maternal, metabolic, cardiovascular and infectious disease care,” said Emilian Popa, chief executive officer (CEO) and co-founder of Ilara Health.

“We view this as only the beginning, widening our disease indication coverage and creating end-to-end value throughout the entire care delivery process. In the coming months, we will continue working to reach patients who currently struggle to access basic lifesaving tests and on developing data-driven insights for better quality care across the continent.”

Ido Sum, partner at TLcom, said his company had been following the underserved health space in Africa for quite some time. 

“While this is one of the areas on which African consumers spend the most, the quality of health outcomes needs to improve. The challenge of bringing affordable and high-quality diagnostics to the actual points of care is yet to be solved,” he said. 

“We are excited about what Ilara Health was able to build in such a short time, and more so about their wider vision of combining world class technologies, financing and their own tech layer to bring true value to medical professionals and patients at the clinics visited by the majority of the population. Ilara Health very much represents the companies we like to partner with the most: solving a true, and large African problem, using tech to achieve scale, and bringing clear and very tangible value to its clients.”