16Nov

Villgo Africa Newsletter 001

November 16, 2020 Benedict 2

We appreciate the overwhelming support and time you took to celebrate the unveiling of Villgro Africa with us. This issue of the Villgro Africa Newsletter features a special highlight video for your future reference, an insightful episode of our podcast alongside exciting portfolio updates.

Standing R-L : Wilfred Njagi, Dr. Robert Karanja, Moses Waweru, Amadi Growman and Gibson Muriuki
Sitting R-L: Snider Mugese, Immanuel Momanyi & Ordia Akelo

“As we look into the future, the tailwinds are now on our side to scale our impact across the African continent. In the next 5 years, we will be scaling deep, scaling wide, and scaling equitably. Part of scaling broad will be taking on a bold initiative to collaborate with local and regional hubs in joint incubation initiatives while scaling wide will be deepening the level of support offered to enterprises.” ~ Wilfred Njagi, Villgro Africa CEO

View the Villgro Africa Launch Highlights

Villgro Africa Podcast

In the second episode of a three part series on Fundraising: Demystifying the local vs expat founder funding gap, we host James Copple, (Founder of Strategic Applications International (SAI) and Servant Forge) and Chrispinus Onyancha, (Founder of a Ugandan-based health-tech startup clinicPesa) – on the role of team dynamics in fundraising. They bring together their opinions on whether Ivy-League networks help in fundraising and how founders can set Big Hairy Audacious Goals for the team to follow. Listen to the Podcast

Portfolio Highlights

Ilara Health Awarded $1.1M Grant by Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
Ilara Health, a health tech enterprise that provides point of care diagnostic testing to small primary care clinics in Kenya, has received a $1.1 million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

The grant will be used to improve maternal health outcomes in Kenya by developing effective antenatal care (ANC) interventions and tech-based solutions for pregnant women unable to access essential services during the COVID-19 pandemic. Read More

MamaOpe Recognised as one of the 100 Meaningful Businesses in 2020

We are delighted for Olivia Koburongo, CEO of MamaOpe, to have been recognized as one of the Meaningful Businesses 100 this year. The award celebrates business leaders across the world combining profit and purpose to help achieve the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. Read More

Ecosystem Activities

The Eastern Africa Bioeconomy Conference

The Villgro Africa team had the opportunity of participating at the 1st East African Bioeconomy Conference. The regional conference, under the auspices of the BioInnovate Africa Programme, brought together scientists, technologists, and innovators from academia, public, and private sector to network and share their experiences of bioeconomy development in Africa, including appropriate enabling environment to foster its growth. The team did due diligence on an array of bioinnovations from the region which were showcased at the conference in a bid to attract new investment opportunities. Villgro Africa will work closely with BioInnovate Africa to deliver a 4-day Bioscience Innovation Bootcamp for the Innovators from the programme.

01Nov

Moving Forward as Villgro Africa

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As we announced at our launch on October 29th 2020, Villgro Kenya will now serve the entire continent as Villgro Africa. We are excited about the future, but are also taking the time to reflect on our past, celebrating our victories and milestones and examining what makes us unique as an organisation.

Villgro is an early stage business incubator and impact investor that seeks to support start-ups with a global health impact in Africa. Working at the intersection of science and industry, Villgro Africa is pioneering social entrepreneurship and impact investment in healthcare and life sciences. The challenge is not in the lack of technology or know-how to solve these problems, but the lack of a convincing business case to warrant the effort. We work with entrepreneurs to develop and deliver innovative solutions through a market-driven approach that targets Africa’s mass market.

We believe that Africa’s development problems will be sustainably resolved through for-profit, innovative products and business models that are demand-driven and scalable. Such enterprises deliver social impact by creating jobs for Africa’s rural and urban poor or by meeting their needs as the target market.

We pride ourselves in being a pioneer health business incubator in East Africa. We now look forward to expanding this to the entire continent. Our incubation plan is custom designed for each enterprise based on their needs at their current stage. We work with entrepreneurs to help them become ready for investment. We expect the investable enterprises to scale up their social impact as they grow after incubation.

Our strength is in healthcare and life sciences. This cuts across many sectors such as primary healthcare, mother and child health (MCH), non-communicable diseases (NCD), nutrition in agriculture, water and sanitation in environmental management, or safety and ergonomics in design of tools and products across various industries. We provide high-touch mentorship by connecting incubatees with mentors who bring with them years of experience in the industry and entrepreneurship

29Oct

PRESS RELEASE – VILLGRO AFRICA LAUNCH

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NAIROBI, Kenya Thursday, 29th October 2020

VILLGRO AFRICA PIONEERING SOCIAL ENTREPRENEURSHIP IN HEALTHCARE AND LIFE SCIENCES

Villgro Africa, an impact investor that inspires, nurtures, and scales innovation by offering customized technical assistance and investments to early-stage social entrepreneurs in Africa today celebrated its 5th anniversary as they go beyond their boundaries to serve the rest of Africa.

In the last five years since inception, through the social enterprises they support, Villgro Africa has enabled access to healthcare to those at the bottom of the pyramid. They have successfully supported 21 enterprises, provided Seed funding of $ 1 million which has enabled the enterprises to generate revenues of $2.2 million, touching 2 million lives.

According to Villgro’s co-founder, Dr. Robert Karanja “Africa’s lion economies, though among the fastest growing economies in the world are not lifting the masses out of poverty. It is estimated that by 2023, Africa’s share of the world’s poverty-stricken will rise from 60% in 2016 to over 80%. It is therefore important for governments and development actors to understand how we can “spring” the poverty-disease trap and reverse this social dynamic. Eleven percent of Africans’ experience catastrophic spending for health care every year, while as many as 38 percent delays or forgo health care due to high costs

As part of the fight against the Covid19 pandemic, Villgro funded 11 innovative startups that have made significant contributions to Kenya’s health system resilience. One of these companies, Rescue (a Villgro Kenya grantee), joined hands with Bolt, the Ministry of Health, University of Nairobi, AMREF, Nairobi County, and several other partners to deploy the “Wheels For Life” initiative to help pregnant mothers quickly seek help and access free emergency transport to hospitals, especially during dusk to dawn curfew hours.

There are partners who have supported Villgro’s journey “We invest in local partners like Villgro to support the ecosystem believing that invention-based, small and growing business can fill the gap by advancing locally developed solutions to health, agricultural and environmental., says Carol Dahl, Executive Director, the Lemelson Foundation.

We value our partnership with Villgro because we have been impressed by Villgro’s ability to identify a successful range of compelling entrepreneurs to address some of the social-economical challenges and build a highly effective incubator for healthcare-related businesses, says Nicholas Colloff, Director, Argidius Foundation.

Villgro is now boldly scaling into Africa, according to Mr. Wilfred Njagi, CEO and Co-Founder of Villgro, “As we look into the future, the tailwinds are now on our side to scale our impact across the African continent. In the next 5 years, we will be scaling deep, scaling wide, and scaling equitably. Part of scaling broad will be taking on a bold initiative to collaborate with local and regional hubs in joint incubation initiatives while scaling wide will be deepening the level of support offered to enterprises. Nicholas Collof, Director Argidius Foundation adds that

While most of Villgro’s strength has been in increasing equitable access to health care especially to the most vulnerable groups, Villgro is not only going beyond geographical boundaries but will also venture to other sectors and partnerships in supporting innovations and entrepreneurs in areas such as food security and water sanitation in line with SDG 2 and SDG 6.

For more information please contact

Ordia Akelo – Communications Lead Villgro Africa – ordia@villgrokenya.or.ke

Mary Gitari – Brandspark PR – mary.gitari@brandspark.co.ke 0722224972

20Oct

MamaOpe Recognised as one of the 100 Meaningful Businesses in 2020

October 20, 2020 Benedict 2

We are delighted for Olivia Koburongo CEO of MamaOpe to have been recognized as one of the Meaningful Businesses 100 this year. The award celebrates business leaders across the world combining profit and purpose to help achieve the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.

There are 120 million episodes of pneumonia per year globally in children under 5, over 10% of these progress to severe episodes (WHO, 2016 factsheet). Pneumonia is the world’s leading cause of death among children under 5 years of age, accounting for 16% of deaths.

MamaOpe easy to use and time-saving kit that can aid health workers and practitioners to easily diagnose Pneumonia at a faster rate with increased accuracy.

The 2nd edition of the MB100 was curated by an expert panel of 16 judges, following a global nomination process. The platform received over 500 nominations from 70 countries, with each one scored across 5 key areas: Impact, Leadership, Innovation, Durability and Scope.

The 100 business leaders include corporate CEOs, entrepreneurs, micro-entrepreneurs, sustainability leaders, functional heads and impact investors from 34 countries. Industries that dominate the list include agriculture, education, healthcare and technology.

Commenting on the MB100, Tom Lytton-Dickie, Founder and CEO, Meaningful Business said, “We are delighted to recognise SEP Jordan as part of the Meaningful Business 100 for 2020. In what has been a challenging year for everyone, the MB100 provides an inspiring reminder of the brilliant work being done around the world to solve the biggest issues we are facing today.”

View the full 2020 MB100 here: meaningful.business/mb100-2020/

15Oct

Ilara Health Awarded $1.1M Grant from Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

October 15, 2020 Benedict 2

Ilara Health, a health tech enterprise that provides point of care diagnostic testing to small primary care clinics in Kenya, has received a $1.1 million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

The grant will be used to improve maternal health outcomes in Keny by developing effective antenatal care (ANC) interventions and tech-based solutions for pregnant women unable to access essential services during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Ilara Health, together with the Kisumu Ministry of Health and the Kenya Medical Research Institute, will leverage a network of local primary care facilities, telemedicine, and home-based health worker consultations to ensure safe continuity of life-saving maternal care during the pandemic and beyond.

Awarded in September, the grant is expected to reach approximately 4,000 low-income pregnant women in peri-urban Kisumu county and will address a significant drop in ANC attendance at large health facilities as concerns for possible COVID-19 transmission grow in these hotspots.

Ilara Health and its partners will work to ensure essential ANC is available at small local clinics. The project aims to improve access to diagnostics locally and, through Ilara Health’s technology platform and diagnostic tools, the team will reach pregnant women at their local clinics, individual homes, or remotely – collectively providing safe, COVID-free, high-quality care to both mother and baby.

Additionally, through its partnership with Butterfly Network, the company behind the telemedicine-enabled Butterfly iQ, a separate set of small facilities without in-house sonographers will be linked to imaging specialists so scans that are carried out locally can be read and diagnosed remotely in real time, so patients receive immediate feedback. If successful, this feature will be rolled out across the larger project to improve the availability of ultrasounds across peri-urban areas. The project also aims to drive community awareness on the importance of ANC services and ANC attendance in improving maternal and neonatal health outcomes for longer-term improvement in care.

“We are incredibly excited to receive support from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to improve Kenya’s maternal health outcomes and promote Ilara Health’s core mission of improving access to diagnostics countrywide. This grant underscores the acute need for the continuation of essential ANC services during the COVID-19 pandemic; we hope to see a great reduction in poor maternal and neonatal health outcomes through its implementation in these low-resource peri-urban areas,” said Emilian Popa, chief executive officer (CEO) and co-founder of Ilara Health.

01Nov

Call for applications: Tech enabled medical services

November 1, 2019 Benedict 43

Villgro Kenya is looking for Innovative Medical Device solution

01Nov

Ilara Health Joins Villgro Kenya’s Porfolio

November 1, 2019 Benedict 38

ILARA HEALTH, a Kenyan based health tech company bringing affordable diagnostics to doctors in Africa

01Nov

The health innovation Learning lab 2019

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Villgro Kenya in collaboration with the County Innovations Challenge Fund hosted the Health Innovation Learning Lab

01Nov

Innovating for the maternal and neonatal health services

November 1, 2019 Benedict 38

Birth asphyxia, sometimes also referred to as perinatal or neonatal asphyxia, is a condition resulting from the failure to establish breathing at birth

01Nov