Ghanaian-based health tech startup, Redbird says it has raised a $1.5 million seed capital, with participation from Johnson & Johnson Foundation and Newtown Partners, via the Imperial Venture Fund. This brings in total, the amount raised by the startup, to $2 million.
Redbird is a health tech startup that enables patients in Ghana to get some medical tests done within 5 minutes at some community pharmacies.
Patients who use the service can also access their digital health records via Redbird’s app.
The startup currently has 340 partner pharmacies across Ghana.
The funding that has been accessed will be used to grow Redbird’s operations in Ghana and for it to expand to new markets.
“We are thrilled to work with Johnson & Johnson Impact Ventures and Newtown Partners. Newtown and Imperial’s expertise in African supply chains, coupled with Johnson & Johnson’s long-standing commitment to improve care for the most vulnerable populations through technology, create a strong support for our vision of revolutionizing health monitoring,” the CEO and co-founder of Redbird, Patrick Beattie, has said.
Currently, patients who want to access the services can register at any of the partner pharmacies, and get access to any of the ten rapid tests provided, the results of which will be saved in their Redbird health records, to be accessed by the patients via the app, or at any partner pharmacy.
“We’re excited about Redbird’s decentralized business model that enables rapid diagnostic testing at the point of primary care in local community pharmacies. Redbird’s digital health record platform has the potential to drive significant value to the broader healthcare value chain and is a vital step towards improving healthcare outcomes in Africa. We look forward to supporting the team as they prove out their business model and scale across the African continent,” Llew Claasen, managing partner of Newtown Partners has also noted.
About Redbird
Redbird is a health tech startup that officially launched in Ghana in August 2018, and was accepted to the Alchemist Accelerator in Silicon Valley, as part of the April 2018 cohort, as well as to Founders Factory Africa in April 2020.
The company’s aim is to provide patients with easy access to their digital health records from 5-minute tests that are available at community pharmacies.
The company currently has 340 partner pharmacies. The tests that are currently available include anaemia, blood sugar, blood pressure, BMI, cholesterol, hepatitis B, malaria, typhoid, screening for prostate cancer and pregnancy.