CarePay International Secures €40 Million Series A Funding to Expand Mobile Health Insurance Platform Across Africa

Recently, VCBeat (WeChat Official Account: vcbeat) learned that CarePay International, a startup with dual headquarters in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, and Nairobi, Africa, has completed a €40 million Series A financing round, becoming one of the best-funded startups in Africa. This round of financing was supported by the Dutch private equity fund IFHA-II, the Dutch strategic investor ELMA Investments, and the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which invested through PharmAccess Group.

CarePay International is a technology company whose mission is to connect insurers, users, and healthcare service providers by building a mobile healthcare payment platform, thereby facilitating real-time communication and transactions among the three parties.

This mobile health payment startup, headquartered in the Netherlands and Africa, was founded in Kenya in 2015. The platform partners with Safaricom, the operator of the mobile money service M-PESA, enabling users to make payments via smart contracts on their mobile phones to ensure transaction security.

As of now, CarePay International has over 4 million users and 1,200 healthcare service companies.

CarePay International’s products have already been rolled out in Kenya and Nigeria. The funds raised in this round will be used to support the development of CarePay International’s mobile healthcare payment platform in Nigeria and Tanzania. In partnership with private capital, CarePay International connects millions of individuals excluded from Africa’s public healthcare system to private healthcare platforms.

Onno Schellekens, CEO of CarePay International, said, “Through mobile phones, patients can access high-quality medical resources with little to no additional cost, and enjoy expanded healthcare services by participating in private health insurance plans.”

Tom McPartland, a board member of ELMA Investments, stated, “African societies need a healthcare service platform that can integrate all African citizens into the healthcare system and achieve universal health insurance coverage across Africa.”

Max Coppoolse, Executive Partner at IFHA-II, stated, “Due to the excessively high administrative costs of Africa’s healthcare system and the difficulty in controlling outpatient expenses, the prevailing health insurance model has excluded the majority of Africans from healthcare coverage. The mobile healthcare payment technology developed by CarePay International addresses the issue of high outpatient costs and provides health insurers with a mobile platform, enabling them to sell health insurance products via mobile phones.”

IFHA-II is a private equity fund that specializes in investing in small and medium-sized private healthcare companies in Sub-Saharan Africa. IFHA-II focuses on investments in the following sectors: medical care, wholesale and distribution of health products, and health insurance.

ELMA Investments focuses on investing in the philanthropic sector in Africa, typically targeting international non-governmental organizations (INGOs) operating in the region. When considering investments in African INGOs, ELMA Investments ensures that investment initiatives are country-led and aligned with the shared interests of local stakeholders.

PharmAccess Group is an entrepreneurial organization dedicated to connecting more people in Africa with better healthcare services. PharmAccess Group believes that mobile technology is shaping the development of Africa’s healthcare industry, and mobile internet applications in healthcare are a key focus area for investment.

(Compiled by Zhang Yujie)