NextBillion - An Initiative of the William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan

Adrian Schauer and Gillian Morantz today announce an initial investment of $10 million to relaunch The Madiro Fund, under the shortened name Madiro (www.madiro.org). This follows AlayaCare’s $225M financing round on June 23, led by Al Gore’s Generation Investment Management, and jumpstarts Madiro’s efforts to support transformative innovation in global health.

The Madiro Fund, established in 2012 following Schauer’s previous company exit, invested in point-of-care diagnostics with Chipcare, and in mobile health technologies in Nigeria and Kenya. Today’s announcement initiates the relaunch of Madiro under the leadership of James Fraser, previously with Doctors Without Borders / MSF, Co-Founder and CEO of Dignitas International, and CEO of Chipcare Corp. Madiro will focus on:

– Providing operational and financial support to transformative solutions in global health on their path to widespread adoption;
– Supporting operations research to generate the evidence required to drive adoption; and
– Leveraging the initial investment with matching gifts to increase impact.

“This level of giving focused on global health is rare in Canadian philanthropy,” says James Fraser, CEO of Madiro. “With this investment, Madiro will work with partners to identify potentially transformative innovations to save lives and reduce suffering, and support these innovations to reach scale.

Adrian Schauer is a serial technology entrepreneur, angel investor, and board member of several technology companies. Through his various ventures, he aims to combine positive social impact with successful business practices.

“Many innovations have shown the potential to make a big impact in the global health space; these are the initiatives we want to work with,” says Adrian Schauer, CEO & Founder at AlayaCare. “We firmly believe that investing in transformational technologies and the scaling models behind them is a must if we wish to have a positive sustainable impact on health equity for the world’s most at-risk populations.”

Dr. Gillian Morantz is a pediatrician & researcher in Montreal, Quebec who has focused her career and research on global child health and social pediatrics. Dr. Morantz also serves as a pediatrics and research advisor for Madiro.

“Whether it’s due to a lack of infrastructure, conflict or marginalization, too many people living in low resource settings still lack access to good quality health care”, says Gillian Morantz. “That’s the gap we want to close.”

Madiro has identified Healthy Entrepreneurs, a social enterprise based in the Netherlands, as its first investment and partner. By providing funding and support to expand beyond its proof-of-concept, Madiro aims to fuel Healthy Entrepreneurs’ mission to provide basic health services to isolated villages in Uganda, Tanzania, Burundi & Kenya.

About Madiro: Striving to promote health equity for the world’s most vulnerable populations, Madiro supports transformative innovation by providing their partners with operational support and funding. Madiro focuses on innovation that encompasses digital technologies, new models of care, improved health systems, and new diagnostics and therapeutics. www.madiro.org

About AlayaCare: AlayaCare offers an end-to-end software platform for home and community care providers to manage the entire client lifecycle from referrals and intake to billing, payroll and beyond. Combining traditional in-home and virtual care solutions, AlayaCare enables care providers across the world to propel towards innovation and healthcare of the future. AlayaCare was founded in 2014 and is the parent company of Procura, Arrow, CIMS, and AcuteNet. www.alayacare.com

About Healthy Entrepreneurs: Healthy Entrepreneurs provides basic health services in remote areas. Through a trained team of over 5500 health workers who sell health care products and provide health education to their customers, Healthy Entrepreneurs is able to reach isolated villages, supporting strong, healthy, and well-informed communities. www.healthyentrepreneurs.nl/