Lagos and Texas-based telemedicine startup, Reliance Health has secured the sum of $40 million in a series B funding round. The funds raised would aid in improving healthcare quality and services in Nigeria and abroad.
The round which was led by General Atlantic – a global growth equity investor is expected to boost the Reliance Health’s growth as it represents the first investment by a US-based growth investment in Africa. Other investors which participated in the round include Partech, Picus Capital, Tencent Exploration, Africa Healthcare Master Fund, P1 Ventures, Laerdal Million Lives Fund and M3 Inc.
The funding also adds the startup to the list of first-time investors leading growth rounds in the last two years, such as FTX, Avenir, SVB Capital and Fidelity.
Reliance Health, which was founded in 2016 by Opeyemi Olumekun and Matthew Mayaki makes use of integrated processes to provide health insurance and telemedicine through partnerships with hospitals and healthcare facilities.In January 2020, the startup secured the sum of $6 million in a series A funding following a $2 million seed round months post YC in 2017 from investors like Partech, Y Combinator, Golden Palm Investments, Ventures Platform, Lofty Inc– and Tencent and Picus, who have participated in the three rounds totalling $48 million.
Speaking on the funding, co-founder and CEO Opeyemi Olumekun said, “Our mission is super simplebut the execution is sometimes more difficult than that, So essentially what we’re trying to do is to use technology to make quality health care accessible and affordable in emerging markets”.
“Essentially, what we try to do is to get guide people to the best option in terms of the care that can be received and regardless of whether that option is provided by a third-party partner or us, we are more concerned with how we work with the customer to guide them to the best option when it comes to accessing the healthcare data”, Olumekun added.
He also noted that the startup plans to use a part of the funding to build two more clinic facilities in two Nigerian cities, Abuja and Port Harcourt adding that the Health platform also intends to hire talent and scale new product lines, especially for Nigerians in the diaspora.
Chris Caulkin, the Managing Director of General Atlantic and head of EMEA Technology, in a statement, said, “General Atlantic is thrilled to announce our first technology investment in Africa in Reliance Health, backing a team focused on improving healthcare quality for millions of patients in Nigeria and abroad. We have been consistently impressed by Femi and Ope, who exemplify the entrepreneurialism and innovation we see across the African continent.”
