Overview:
This comes after MyDAWA raised $20 million in funding from Alta Semper Capital, a private equity firm.
MyDAWA, a Kenya-based health-tech startup, has announced the acquisition of Guardian Health, a Ugandan pharmacy.
This comes after MyDAWA raised $20 million in funding from Alta Semper Capital, a private equity firm.
Guardian Health currently has pharmacies in major cities and towns across the country such as Jinja, Mbarara, Mbale, Mukono and Kampala.
MyDawa co-founder Neil O’Leary said with the new funding, they now have the capacity to extend their services across the region.
“MyDawa now has both a solid secure base and a great expansion opportunity based on a great offering which improves health outcomes. Guardian is a great first step on fulfilling our ambition,” O’Leary said.
He hailed Alta Semper’s funding, saying it matches their ambition.
“Alta Semper’s ambition exactly matches that of MyDawa, and it brings the drive, connections and clout to succeed. Three years ago, AAIC, a Japanese-backed African healthcare fund, joined as our first external investor and now the team has been augmented in the strongest manner possible,” he added.
“MyDawa now has both a solid secure base and a great expansion opportunity based on a great offering which improves health outcomes. Guardian is a great first step on fulfilling our ambition,”
MyDawa co-founder Neil O’Leary
The company also announced that Priscilla Muhiu, a former manager of Glovo Kenya, will now head the health-tech startup as it looks to venture into other countries.
Established in 2016 with a mandate to ensure people can easily access healthcare products and services, MyDAWA is one of those startups.
Alta Semper Capital CEO Afsane Jetha said they would prioritize market-leading businesses in highly diversified, politically stable, and fast-growing economies.
“MYDAWA was the logical choice for us as their groundbreaking technology, underpinning a scalable business model along with regulatory know-how and market entry experience mapped so well to our own strategy,” he said.
“With consumer spending in Africa projected to reach $2.1 trillion by 2025, this represents one of the continent’s largest business opportunities. Therefore, the investment into MyDawa is part of our strategic aim at meeting this growing demand by investing in locally produced and value-priced consumer goods and services,” he added.
This is not the first time MYDAWA is attracting investments. In 2019, the health-tech startup raised $3 million from the Africa HealthCare Masterfund. The investment was to enable it to continue its mission of reaching more counties with affordable medicines and healthcare products.
Two years later, it received a $1.2 million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation which was intended to expand the startup’s e-pharmacy offerings by including Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis (PrEP) services. For context, PrEP is