MDaaS Global, a Nigerian health tech company, has just announced a major milestone in their journey. The company, which operates a network of tech-enabled diagnostic centers across the country, has secured $3 million in pre-Series A funding. With a total investment of $6.8 million, MDaaS is poised for even greater success in the Nigerian healthcare market.
This round of funding was led by Aruwa Capital and Newton Partners, who have been a major supporter of MDaaS since their $2.3 million seed extension in 2021. Ventures Platform, who also provided follow-on capital, completes the trio of investors in this round.
Going forward, MDaaS plans to use the investment to launch BeaconOS, their proprietary technology platform that was first introduced last year. With this launch, the seven-year-old health tech aims to expand their healthcare network to cover all Nigerian states. This will be achieved through a combination of both company-owned and affiliate clinics.
Access to healthcare in Nigeria and across Africa is a significant challenge. Often, people prioritize treating diseases rather than focusing on prevention. As a result, life-threatening diseases, especially non-communicable ones, are often undetected until later stages. MDaaS understands the importance of improving access to diagnostics and preventive care, and has garnered recognition for their efforts in tackling this healthcare challenge.
“Improving access to diagnostics and preventive care, a domain where MDaaS has garnered recognition, is essential in tackling this healthcare challenge.”
Since our previous coverage a few years ago, MDaaS has expanded its operations significantly. They currently have a network of 17 diagnostic centers across 10 states, and are planning to construct an additional 23 centers in the coming years. This remarkable growth is a testament to the company’s dedication and the effectiveness of their services.
Founded in 2017 by CEO Oluwasoga Oni, Opeyemi Ologun, and Genevieve Oni, MDaaS offers a range of services at their diagnostic centers. These include imaging, such as digital x-ray and ultrasound, as well as cardiac services like ECG and echo. Additionally, they provide various lab services, spanning from chemistry analysis to immunoassay and hematology.
Patients can easily access these facilities through the platform’s SentinelX app. Acting as a personalized care program, the app allows them to pay a one-time fee for yearly access to a doctor. Originally designed as a customer-centric product, MDaaS has adapted SentinelX to cater more to businesses.
“While SentinelX didn’t perform as well as a B2C product, it has been highly successful as a B2B product.”
“We now focus on serving corporates and conducting annual screenings for their employees,” explained CEO Oni.
The company has also incorporated pre-employment and government-mandated screenings, which have become a significant source of revenue alongside individual customer screenings. This diversification of their services has been key to their success.
BeaconOS and an integrated care network are pivotal to MDaaS’ operations and growth in Nigeria. Acting as the operating system for their diagnostic facilities, BeaconOS provides the company with visibility into the day-to-day operations of their centers. This facilitates easier management of patient visits and clinical results for their teams.
On the other hand, the company’s care network involves collaborating with over 1,300 referring clinicians across more than 1,000 organizations. These include hospitals, pharmacies, health tech startups, corporate partners, and 34 HMOs.
Since its inception, MDaaS has provided care to over 275,000 patients, leveraging their integrated care network and BeaconOS capabilities. In the past year alone, the health tech served 108,724 patients, with women constituting 60.8% of the total. Additionally, they conducted over 240,000 diagnostic tests, with chest x-rays, urinalysis, and full blood count ranking among the top three procedures performed.
“We tend to screen a lot of people that work with corporates and what we see is that there’s really high levels of hypertension in the country,” said Oni, highlighting some of the most common diagnoses on the platform.
“We just see that many workers battle with lifestyle and non-infectious diseases like cancer, hypertension, diabetes. The roots of those types of things like that are actually rising, we can see that in our data points and we help them get the care they need.”
To ease the communication between their diagnostic centers and clients, MDaaS rolled out Olewerk to help optimize diagnostic workflows and Beam to assist partners in managing occupational health for their teams. With the new investment, they intend to develop new applications on the BeaconOS platform. These include an affiliate clinic portal for real-time patient referrals and results management, and integration with HMOs to streamline authorization processes. They also plan to develop a patient-facing app for appointment booking, result access, and health insurance management.
“We are thrilled to partner with MDaaS Global on their mission to revolutionize healthcare delivery in Africa. MDaaS’ track record of consistent and impressive growth, as well as their dedication to bringing high-quality diagnostics to high-need patients, resonated deeply with us,” said Adesuwa Okunbo Rhodes, founder, and managing partner at Aruwa Capital.
“As a gender-lens investor, we are especially excited to support a company that is driving change for women across Nigeria — over 60% of BeaconHealth patients are women, predominantly of reproductive age — and MDaaS shares our commitment to building gender-diverse teams.”
