Africa Health Ventures #28: The Worst Year On Record

Healthcare ventures in Africa raised less capital in the first half of 2026 than in any comparable period since 2019. The decline is broad-based, affecting equity and debt, across multiple stages. It hits across both deal volume as well as deal count. Only 36 startups tackling health have raised capital so far in 2026, totalling under $20 million.1 To put it bluntly, this is the worst funding market the sector has seen.

Let’s be precise about what this data says — and what it doesn’t. It is not a verdict on the sector. It says nothing about what consumers are spending on care, and nothing about which business models are working. Healthcare is an essential market and among the most durable of any sector. By any measure the size of the market dwarfs the financing now flowing into it. Capital is retreating from a market that isn’t.

That gap should concern anyone who understands that the world’s strongest health systems (even predominantly public health systems) rest on a vigorous private sector — providing supply chain, diagnostics, therapeutics, digital health, and innovative technologies — and it grows more consequential as AI redraws what is possible.

At the same time, for investors who are still deploying, deal quality is high, valuations are rational, and the additionality of each cheque is real. Down cycles have a way of clarifying which revenue models actually work. The rounds closing today are closing on fundamentals, not momentum. The businesses that compound through a funding winter are the ones that will define the decade to follow.

Read on for 13 deals, 20 funding opportunities, 13 events, and 10 jobs relevant to healthcare innovators and investors in Africa.

• 🧬 Reme-D in Egypt has raised $1.5 million in a round with Anara Capital, the Global Innovation Fund, and Africa Health Ventures to scale its affordable, temperature-resilient molecular diagnostics for a wide range of diseases. The funding will expand manufacturing capacity tenfold, broaden regional reach, and add diagnostics for non-communicable diseases and cancers.

• 💊 Dawa Mkononi in Tanzania has closed an equity investment from Africa Health Ventures. Dawa Mkononi is a pharmaceutical supply chain platform leveraging technology and embedded financing to streamline medicine distribution for drug shops, pharmacies, clinics, and hospitals.

• 🏥 EdenCare in Rwanda, expanding into Kenya, has secured €250,000 from Proparco to grow its digital health insurance and B2B SaaS claims platform for employers.

• 💉 Valorigo in the Democratic Republic of Congo received a re-investment from Digital Africa to grow its dual-sided platform helping patients compare medication prices and pharmacies manage operations.

• 🏨 Tibu Health in Kenya received funding from Proparco to expand its hub-and-spoke network of affordable primary care “Minute Clinics” embedded in pharmacies and supermarkets.

• 💳 Fortics, a Nigerian tech startup, secured $142,000 in debt from Cascador. Fortics is a healthcare holding company that acquires and revitalizes underperforming hospitals and pharmacies.

• 💉 Biovac in South Africa signed a $15 million loan agreement with the African Development Bank to build a new multi-vaccine manufacturing facility in Cape Town.

• 🤖 IRRI Vision, an Egyptian healthtech startup building AI-powered diagnostic tools, has been acquired by Edafa Venture. The technology helps physicians deliver faster, more accurate diagnoses and improve treatment outcomes.

• 3IF Ventures (the Inclusive Insurance Investment Fund) has raised $12 million at first close to back early-stage insurtech businesses closing Africa’s protection gap. 3IF funds pre-seed to Series B deals across digital health, climate resilience, agriculture, and SME protection.

• SHONA Capital Uganda has secured $5 million from TLG Capital to provide rapid, flexible debt financing to SMEs in healthcare, food and agriculture, retail, and manufacturing.

• EmergingTech Ventures Fund II, targeting Morocco, Tunisia, Senegal, and Côte d’Ivoire, has secured a cornerstone investment from Proparco toward a $60 million fund. It will back pre-Series A and Series A startups in healthtech, deeptech, and other sectors.

• The FCMB-TLG Private Debt Fund in Nigeria has closed its Series II oversubscribed at ₦20.69 billion to provide debt to mid-sized companies. Capital will be deployed across healthcare, agriculture, education, and other sectors.

• 🎉Exit Announcement: T2S Group Holding, a leading MedTech distributor and equipment maintenance group in Morocco, has listed on the Casablanca Stock Exchange via a MAD 1.1 billion (~$120 million) transaction led by Helios. The listing provides liquidity to existing investors while supporting continued expansion across Africa.

• Google has transferred its Open Health Stack to the Linux Foundation, creating a vendor-neutral foundation backed by a $3 million grant to advance open-source digital health technologies in low-resource regions. Looking to build on Open Health Stack? Check out this intro video.

• Techbuild Africa published a piece on East Africa’s healthtech landscape, identifying Kenya as the deepest market while Rwanda advances in state-led digitization.

• Muhammad Ali Pate, the Coordinating Minister of Health and Social Welfare of Nigeria, published an opinion article in the Premium Times on the healthtech opportunity in Nigeria and its enabling ecosystem. He highlights initiatives such as the Nigeria Health Sector Renewal Investment Initiative and the National Health Technology and Data Analytics Office, aiming to build competitive health tech companies serving African markets.

• Uganda has declared itself free of Ebola.

• The Gates Medical Research Institute has partnered with the Serum Institute of India to manufacture M72/AS01E, a tuberculosis vaccine candidate currently in Phase 3 trials that could become the first new TB vaccine in over a century.

• Google’s latest AI usage atlas shows African countries using AI tools for work-related tasks at notably higher rates than developed nations, suggesting Africa is treating AI as a productivity multiplier to bypass traditional business constraints. Relatedly, a survey by Ipsos and Google this year indicated 91 per cent of Nigerian AI users say they use it to assist with their work, the highest share of any of the emerging markets surveyed.

• Surgia from Egypt took home first prize in the AfricaTech Award at the VivaTech conference in Paris earlier this year.

• Nigerian healthtech organization HelpMum won the Grand Prize for AI for Social Impact at Prix Ars Electronica 2026 for its WhatsApp-based maternal and child health tools.

• The US government has announced it will release $600 million in Congressional appropriations to GAVI, continuing the decades-long US-Gavi partnership to immunize children and strengthen global defenses against outbreaks.

• The Trump administration is ending PEPFAR funding for South Africa, a program that has provided over $8 billion to the country since 2003.

• New analysis from Think Global Health finds the Trump administration’s bilateral health agreements with 34 countries are shifting US global health engagement from aid to jointly financed partnerships worth at least $24.2 billion, requiring partner nations to raise domestic health spending — including a strategic pivot toward HIV/AIDS and health security at the expense of maternal health and family planning.

• Orange Money Senegal has partnered with Senegal’s Ministry of Health to digitalize healthcare services through secure digital payment solutions.

• The Mohammed VI Foundation for Science and Health and ABA LIFE established a joint venture to build AI-powered smart health infrastructure in Morocco.

• Nigeria’s federal government is investing ₦500 billion over five years to establish an integrated national digital health system.

• The Nigerian Senate has advanced the National E-Health Bill, 2026, establishing a legal framework for digital healthcare services.

• Zambia has deployed its SmartCare Pro Electronic Health Record system to 80% of health facilities nationwide.

• Due Aug 12: Nexa Funding Opportunity is a partnership between Grand Challenges Canada and the Science for Africa Foundation funding Transition to Scale climate and health innovations across Africa, Latin America, and the Caribbean, with awards of approximately $250,000–$2,000,000 USD.

• Due Aug 13: Milken-Motsepe Prize in Circular Economy is a $2 million competition, including a $1 million grand prize, for scalable, technology-driven enterprises advancing circular economy principles across African industries, with winners gaining networking access and opportunities to present to industry executives.

• Due Aug 14: Africa Fundraising Incubator (AFI) is a capacity-building program from the New Africa Fund for African organizations registered in AU member states, offering fundraising training, a matched-funds “30-Day Challenge Month,” and 12 months of complimentary fiscal sponsorship.

• Due Aug 15: The Annual Wharton Africa Business Forum offers participants the chance to win up to $30,000 in non-dilutive financing and network with top founders and investors from across Africa.

• Due Aug 19: iF Social Impact Prize is a design-focused competition from iF Design Award that distributes EUR 100,000 to projects advancing the UN Sustainable Development Goals, with winners receiving prize funds and global media exposure.

• Due Aug 21: Coefficient Giving: Global Health and Wellbeing in an Era of Transformative AI is offering grants of $100,000 to $10 million for projects preparing global health systems for the broader effects of transformative AI.

• Due Aug 25: AI-Enabled Consumer Engagement to Advance Family Planning is a Gates Foundation grant of up to $500,000 for organizations with existing women’s health programs to test whether AI-powered consumer engagement can improve contraceptive uptake and continuation in target sub-Saharan African countries.

• Due Aug 28: Google for Startup Accelerator is accepting applicants from South Africa.

• Due Aug 31: The Dawn Project Climate & Health Challenge is a creative competition open to participants of all ages to submit essays, poetry, art, or songs exploring the link between climate change and human health, with cash prizes for outstanding entries.

• Due Aug 31: Social Shifters Global Innovation Challenge is a grant program for 100% youth-led, impact-driven startups led by founders aged 18-30 addressing a social or environmental issue aligned with a UN Sustainable Development Goal, offering funding, network access, and brand exposure.

• Due Sept 8: Africa Prize for Engineering Innovation is a Royal Academy of Engineering program for African innovators, offering an eight-month training program, two fully-funded training weeks, mentoring, and prize money of up to £50,000.

• Due Sept 8: Grand Challenge: Multiplex Platforms to Assess Indicators of Micronutrient Status, Inflammation and Infection is a Gates Foundation grant funding development of low-cost, low-volume multiplex assay platforms to measure micronutrient and infection/inflammation biomarkers in low- and middle-income countries.

• Due Sept 14: Antler Nigeria is accepting applications for its 10-week program including $100,000 in funding.

• Due Sept 15: GAFSP Ninth Call for Proposals is a grant program distributing approximately $163M to support country-led initiatives in eligible low-income countries that strengthen food security, build climate resilience, and improve livelihoods for smallholder farmers and rural communities.

• Due Sept 16: Wellcome Snakebite Innovation Prize is a competition funding innovations to reduce snakebite mortality in low- and middle-income countries, awarding £75,000 to 10 finalists and £750,000 to 2 winners.

• Due Oct 12: Antler Nairobi is accepting applications for its 10-week program including $100,000 in funding.

• Ongoing: DIV Fund is a tiered grant program supporting innovative solutions in low- and middle-income countries, offering Stage 1 grants of up to $200,000 for pilots, up to $500,000 for Stage 2 testing, and up to $1.5M for Stage 3 scaling of validated interventions.

• Ongoing: Assistive Technology for Disability (AT4D) Fund supports startups developing assistive technologies for people with disabilities in Africa. They provide funding of up to $100,000 with priority given to graduates of their accelerator.

• Ongoing: Fetola and FNB Youth Start-up Accelerator (YSA) invites aspiring entrepreneurs in South Africa aged 18–35 to apply for a 12-month accelerator delivered by Fetola and FNB.

• Ongoing: Indie EmpowerHer is a women’s financing initiative in Lagos providing female entrepreneurs with up to N5 million in business loans.

• Aug 24-26 in Kampala: The African Forum for Research and Education in Health

• Sept 16-17 in Cape Town: GEC+Africa

• Sept 28-29 in Ingelheim: Making More Health Together

• Sept 28-30 in Munich: Bits & Pretzels

• Sept 30-Oct 2 in Kigali: The Africa HealthTech Summit

• Oct 6-8 in Johannesburg: World Health Expo

• Oct 12-14 in Chicago: SOCAP

• Oct 13-14 in Tunis: BigTech Africa

• Oct 13-14 in London: Investing in Africa

• Oct 13-15 in Cape Town: World Health Expo (WHX Cape Town)

• Oct 14-15 in Lagos: Inspire Africa

• Oct 27-29 in Amsterdam: The Impact Forum from GIIN

• Oct 28-29 in Lagos: MoonShot by TechCabal

• Senior Program Officer AI and Health, Gates Foundation, Johannesburg

• Director of Health Financing, Clinton Health Access Initiative, Flexible

• Senior Consultant, Salient Advisory, Africa

• Sales Lead, Intron Voice AI, Flexible

• Product Lead Voice AI, Intron Voice AI, Flexible

• Medical Representative, TIBU Health, Nairobi

• Marketing Officer, TIBU Health, Nairobi

• Account Executive, Fortics Lifecare, Lagos

• Head of Manufacturing, Bio Usawa, Kigali

Five years of investing in healthcare businesses across emerging markets reveal that the strongest opportunities are not simply digitizing existing care, but expanding the market to reach entirely new patient populations. Investors for Health, including IFC, Impact Fund Denmark, Temasek, and Johnson & Johnson, published a recent report highlighting where capital can be most catalytic—from validating new delivery models and specialty platforms to building companies with credible paths to scale, profitability, and responsible exits.

📖 Read the full report here.

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