South Africa’s RecoMed raises $1.5M to scale its online healthcare marketplace

An African startup described as the “booking.com for healthcare” by its founder has raised $1.5 million from its most recent round.

RecoMed acts as a marketplace where patients can find and book services with healthcare professionals across South Africa.

Sheraan Amod first founded the company after a brief stay in the U.S, where he experienced for the first time what it was like to book medical appointments online, which wasn’t the case back in his home country, South Africa.

Mr. Amod then returned and created the company he refers to as the “booking.com for healthcare.”

Although the funds they raised aren’t as large as others, it’s still a pretty big deal!

Their milestone round was led by South Africa-focused venture capital firm Vunani Fintech Fund and according to claims made by RecoMed to TechCrunch – the firm invested $1 million.

The rest of the funds were reportedly shared between existing investors, Japanese but Africa-focused VC firm AAIC, Growth Grid Venture Capital Partners, and Kenyan-based Push Ventures.

Patients can search and browse practitioner profiles, check reviews, and book a physical or virtual telehealth appointment from the website or app.

According to the company, healthcare practitioners, enterprises, and insurers use the platform differently.

Practitioners adopt the platform as a “standalone platform or via an integration with their external Practice Management System (PNS), a software program used to operate medical and healthcare practices,” according to TechCrunch.

But for enterprises, RecoMed is white-labeled to allow booking and telehealth functionality for patient customer groups.