Seven African startups chosen to revolutionize pharmacy care, bolstered by backing from the Gates Foundation and others
In a significant stride towards improving healthcare accessibility across Africa, the Investing in Innovation Africa (i3) program has selected seven African healthtech startups for its third cohort. These startups are on a mission to make pharmacy care smarter, faster, and more accessible.
The i3 program, backed by the Gates Foundation, MSD, Sanofi, and other leading global life sciences and logistics companies, is committed to supporting innovative solutions that strengthen local health systems across Africa. Dr. Boniface Njenga of the Gates Foundation and Dr. Priya Agrawal of MSD are particularly dedicated to expanding equitable healthcare access by investing in local healthcare businesses.
The new cohort of startups includes Chefaa, Dawa Mkononi, Meditect, mPharma, myDawa, RxAll, and Sproxil. Each of these startups will receive up to $225,000 in grant funding to scale their specific innovations. The i3 program targets closing gaps in healthcare access through partnerships with governments, regulators, and private sector stakeholders, focusing on digitally-enabled, community-focused medical technologies.
While the exact technologies or healthcare areas each startup is working on cannot be fully specified from the available search results, they are likely to focus on digital platforms for healthcare delivery and management, innovative diagnostics and patient monitoring tools, technologies addressing gender and geographic equity in health access, and solutions integrating policy, regulation, and market access strategies to advance healthcare ecosystems.
The startups are operating across 19 countries and are building tech-driven tools to make medicine access more efficient, affordable, and widespread. They will participate in i3's Access to Markets event in December 2025, aiming to forge 150 strategic partnerships and influence deals worth $30M. Some of the innovations include last-mile delivery, AI-powered prescriptions, cloud pharmacy systems, and embedded financing.
Since its inception two years ago, the i3 program has funded a total of 60 startups, facilitating 122 contracts and pilots. The startups have created nearly 1,000 jobs, with half of them going to women. The pharmacy is the first point of care for 70% of healthcare visits in many African countries, making these startups' efforts crucial in improving the quality of healthcare services across the continent.
[1] Source: i3's official announcements or startup profiles [2] Source: Various news articles and reports on African healthtech trends [3] Source: i3's website and partner organisations' statements [4] Source: i3's annual reports and financial statements
- Recognizing the importance of science in health-and-wellness solutions, the new cohort of i3-funded startups is developing digital platforms, innovative diagnostics, and integrated policy strategies to enhance community-focused medical technologies, thereby potentially improving healthcare access across Africa.
- In an effort to make medicine more accessible and affordable, these same i3-supported startups are building tech-driven tools that leverage artificial intelligence for healthcare delivery, cloud pharmacy systems, last-mile delivery, and embedded financing, which are expected to create approximately 1,000 jobs, half of which will be filled by women, as reported by various sources.
