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

Thursday, July 11, 2019

By Yomi Kazeem

Health-focused startups have been low-profile players in Nigeria’s burgeoning tech ecosystem over the past decade—but that’s starting to change.

Startups identifying gaps in the healthcare delivery value chain across Africa’s most populous country are increasingly winning investor attention and dollars. The sector reached a milestone this month as 54gene, a genomics company focused on African DNA, raised $4.5 million in a seed round—the largest by a Nigerian health tech startup. Investor participants in 54gene’s seed round included Y Combinator, Fifty Years, Better Ventures, KdT Ventures, Hack VC and Techammer.

While the investment size pales in comparison to other sectors such as fintech which is characterized by bigger-ticket funding rounds, it reflects the nascent nature of the health-tech startup space, not just in Nigeria but across the continent.

Photo courtesy of Andy Miah.