Since its launch in June 2022, the Investing in Innovation Africa (i3) program has been dedicated to bridging the gap between African health tech innovators and major health purchasers. Through strategic partnerships and tailored support, i3 has empowered startups to scale their solutions, addressing critical supply chain challenges and improving healthcare delivery across the continent.

The program’s impact is already profound. With a focus on diversity and inclusion, particularly supporting women-led and Francophone companies, i3’s 3-pronged approach—risk-tolerant funding, market access, and development support—has enabled innovators to grow. By the conclusion of Phase 1 in May 2024, i3 had facilitated more than 450 bespoke connections between startups and customers, raised over $50 million for innovators, and created nearly 1,000 jobs, 45% of which were filled by women. These efforts directly reached 15 million people and helped deliver 250 million health products through 72,000 healthcare providers.

As i3 prepares for its next phase, the program continues to focus on scaling health tech innovations through improved partnerships, bespoke support, and access to finance that meet the unique needs of African innovators. By facilitating these key connections, i3 remains committed to shaping a healthier, more equitable future for the continent.

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We join the world today to celebrate the International Women’s Day and spotlight the remarkable contributions of all 22 women-led companies among the 60 companies that has ever been enrolled on the Investing in Innovation (i3) program. I3 is creating a more inclusive ecosystem that embraces inclusion of women founders and unlocks the full potential of Africa's innovation landscape. For us, 'women-led' denotes a company where a woman holds shares, is integral to the management team, and actively participates in the day-to-day decision-making processes.

Women-led companies within the cohort leverage their technology to provide a range of services, including cloud-based inventory management and marketplace solutions for pharmacies, decentralized healthcare through teleconsultations and medication deliveries, offline and online dispensing and logistics for pharmacies, as well as equipping health workers with equipment, consumables, and online training, among others.

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The Pan-African “Investing in Innovation” program will provide grants and commercialization support to 60 healthtech companies over two years. 

June 22, 2022. Lagos, Nigeria. Healthcare consulting firm Salient Advisory has launched its latest market intelligence report highlighting promising African healthtech start-ups in supply chain. Spurred by these findings, a consortium of global and continental organizations, with funding from Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, are pleased to announce the launch of a pan-African initiative to support companies’ impact, access to markets and commercialization. 

Salient’s report, titled ‘Innovations in Digitising Distribution of Health Products’, highlights more than 80 healthtech innovators in Kenya, Uganda, Ghana, and Nigeria. Tech-enabled approaches to digitizing medicine distribution to underserved pharmacies, drug shops, clinics and hospitals, pioneered by companies such as Lifestores, Maisha Meds and Shelf Life, recorded rapid growth in the past year, mirroring trends seen in B2B e-commerce on the African continent. Innovators are also demonstrating an increasing interest in powering rural supply chains, improving availability of medicines, and bolstering resiliency of supply chain operations. 

Investor interest has also been strong; 36% of all-time funding reported by health care supply chain innovators profiled was raised in the last 12 months. However, exclusionary funding trends remain entrenched: only 2% of recent funding was raised by Black, women founders, a total of just $1.6 million in 2021. 

Inspired by the progress and potential of African innovators in supply chain, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, alongside Merck Sharp & Dohme (MSD), the World Health Organisation Regional Office for Africa, AUDA-NEPAD and AmerisourceBergen, are launching a $7 million pan-African initiative to provide 60 promising early and growth-stage companies with risk-tolerant grants alongside commercialization support to power their impact at scale. The program, called Investing in Innovation (i3), is coordinated by Salient Advisory, SCIDaR, and SouthBridge A&I and is operationalized with CCHUB,  Startupbootcamp, IMPACT Lab, and Villgro Africa. Applications for the first cohort of 30 companies are open now, at www.innovationsinafrica.com. Applications will close in mid-August. 

Cheikh Oumar Seydi, Director, Africa, at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, commented: 

African health innovators have shown increasing capacity to leverage technology to optimize supply chains and advance access to medicines. Such local innovations have the potential to change how supply chains and health systems function – and it is time to support them. We are pleased to be collaborating with strong global and continental partners to jointly strengthen African health systems and accelerate progress towards universal health coverage.

Dr Abdullahi Sheriff, AVP, Global Market Access, Sustainable Access Solutions at MSD also commented:  

There has been considerable progress in tech-driven innovation in health product distribution across Africa. Spurring and scaling disruptive innovation in health supply chain is key to expanding access to medicines for all. That’s why we, at MSD, are excited to collaborate on the i3 program. 

Dr Janet Byaruhanga, Senior Programme Officer – Health at AUDA-NEPAD also commented: 

The COVID-19 pandemic demonstrated the capacity of African innovators to leverage tech enabled solutions to transform medicine distribution. AUDA-NEPAD will continue to leverage its mandate and comparative advantage to foster partnerships that strengthen evidence, deploy innovation, enhance policy environments and facilitate critical investments, while creating valuable and high-impact jobs across the continent.

Speaking on the launch of the report and i3 program, Director of Salient Advisory, Remi Adeseun said:

There has been considerable progress over the past year as supply chain innovations work to enhance access to quality medicines. Our report provides investors, donors, and governments with actionable recommendations on engagement strategies to advance companies’ growth and impact. With funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and along with our esteemed partners, we are excited to be launching the Investing in Innovation program to connect promising companies to customers who can power their impact and scale.

Source: Co-Creation Hub Nigeria

Research has shown that women-led technology firms face inequities in access to funding and support globally¹.

Women entrepreneurs seeking funds and support face gender biases, are perceived as less skilled, experience greater scrutiny and are more likely to be undervalued. In addition, more than 82% of global investors are men, and prospect identification, networking, mentorship, and due diligence processes have largely been designed by men for male investors and entrepreneurs^2,3. In Africa specifically, data indicate that only about 10% of companies are founded solely by a woman / women, and very few of them have received any form of grant funding⁴.

The i3 program recognizes the structural constraints impacting women-led health tech startups and is working to understand the issues, challenge gender norms and promote women’s position and influence in the ecosystem.

Fundamentally, we aim to ensure the participation and support of women-led companies in the program as a means to transfer resources, networks and knowledge to women leaders. We define a women-led company as a business with a woman/women with long-term control and management of the business, an equity stake, and an active role in both strategic and day-to-day decision-making. Our key target is to ensure that more than 33% of selected companies are women-led.

We realize we can’t be gender inclusive, if the project team doesn’t walk-the-talk. Thus, we’ve aimed to be gender inclusive at every level. To date this looks like:

• 75% of the program coordination team are women
• 46% of the members of the regional selection committees are women
• 30% of the steering committee is comprised of women

We recognize that shifting representation to ensure women are in the room is just a first step in shifting systems of power. Thus, the I3 consortium is committed to actively learning how we can deconstruct our own gender biases, and better use our resources, networks and time to advance gender equity – and thus impact. We are committed to learning and adjusting as we go.

Gender transformation is a long-term goal, but the work starts now! Feedback, advice, and guidance is most welcome.

1 Jordan Rubio and Priyamvada Mathur, “An Exceptional Year for Female Founders Still Means a Sliver of VC Funding,” PitchBook, News & Analysis, January 10, 2022. https://pitchbook.com/news/articles/female-founders-dashboard-2021-vc-funding-wrap-up.

2 Tage Kene-Okafor, “6 African Women CEOs Discuss How They Raised More Than $1M in 2021,” TechCrunch, March 15, 2022, https://techcrunch.com/2022/03/15/6-african-women-ceos-discuss-how-they-raised-more-than-1m-in-2021/

3 Suzanne Biegel, and Isis Nyong'o Madison, “Five Ways to Advance Gender Lens Investing in Africa,” Wharton Social Impact Initiative, May 3, 2017, https://socialimpact.wharton.upenn.edu/news/five-ways-advance-gender-lens-investing-africa/.

4 Digitizing Health Product Distribution: Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya & Uganda. Market Intelligence Report.  Salient Advisory, June 2022. https://healthtech.salientadvisory.com/reports/innovations-in-digitizing-distribution-of-health-products-2022/

I3 is supported by a leading set of sponsors from donors, industry, and African institutions, who believe in the power of innovations in supply chain to accelerate access to medicines. Sponsors include: the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, MSD, AmerisourceBergen, WHO-AFRO and AUDA-NEPAD.

Our sponsors have communicated their excitement about the program, and the potential of innovators on the continent.

Dr Jeremie Zoungrana, Director, Nigeria Country Office, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, commented:

For years, we have been tracking African startups developing tech-enabled approaches to get health products closer to the people who need them while ensuring quality, affordability, and visibility. We are excited about the promise of these innovators to help deliver impact at scale. Thus, we have come together with MSD, AmerisourceBergen, AUDA-NEPAD and WHO AFRO to launch the i3 program, to support sixty leading innovators in health product distribution over the next 24 months.

Dr Moredreck Chibi, Regional Adviser on Innovation, World Health Organization, Regional Office for Africa, also commented:

We are really excited to be a part of the i3 initiative, which will support the commercialization of tech-enabled businesses bringing high-quality health products closer to where patients at affordable prices.

Hear more from Dr Zoungrana, Dr Chibi, and Dr Janet Byaruhanga, Senior Program Officer, Health, AUDA-NEPAD, about the problems they are hoping to solve in collaboration with selected innovators here.