Black-Owned Healthtech Startup Reliance Health Raises $40M In Series B
The company was founded in 2015 by Femi Kuti, Opeyemi Olumekun, and Matthew Mayaki and now – six years later – it has just raised $40 million.
Headquartered in Lagos, Nigeria, and Austin, Texas, Reliance Health began operations in Nigeria as a telemedicine-focused startup, Kangpe, it later expanded into a single-fee healthcare provider to better address the complex, evolving needs of patients.
Reliance Health operates business-to-business and business-to-customers models. RelianceHMO is the company’s health insurance plan for both sets of customers where individuals can select monthly, quarterly, or yearly health plans.
But businesses can also make subscriptions on behalf of their employees, which Kuti said are slightly cheaper than plans used by retail customers.
The round was led by General Atlantic, a leading global growth equity investor, with participation from Partech, Picus Capital, Tencent Exploration, AAIC (Asia Africa Investment and Consulting), P1 Ventures, Laerdal Million Lives Fund and M3.
The Series B round is said to be one of the largest of its kind in African healthtech.
This investment has come two years after the company’s $6 million Series A in January 2020 and several year after its $2 million seed round months post-YC in 2017.
Funding will go towards building two more clinic facilities in two Nigerian cities, Abuja and Port Harcourt. Reliance Health also intends to hire talent and scale new product lines, especially for Nigerians in the diaspora.
The healthtech company will also expand into new markets.
“Healthcare in emerging markets is often overlooked by private initiatives because it’s an extremely complex challenge to solve. At Reliance Health, by leveraging new innovations to break the constraints of legacy solutions, we believe there is an opportunity to solve some of these tough problems and even for aspects of healthcare in emerging markets to leapfrog to other parts of the world.
“We are excited to work with our investors towards bringing affordability and accessibility in healthcare to underserved markets, ultimately saving lives around the world,” said Femi Kuti, Reliance Health CEO and Co-Founder.
