A new South African partnership has announced that it has secured $3 million in pre-Series A funding.
The interesting part is, according to TechCrunch, this partnership doesn’t have a name as of yet.
However, it still managed to secure enough funds to launch a tele-health product. Even more interestingly, this product that they’ve just launched doesn’t have a name yet, either.
How did they manage to do this?
This South African partnership is ultimately a joint venture between three companies: Webrock Ventures, Healthforce.io, and Doktor.se.
Webrock Ventures is a Sweden-based investment firm that partners with African companies to create what’s called “portfolio businesses.” They do this while retaining a stake in the company.
Healthforce, meanwhile, is a South African company that has installed nurses in more than 450 locations throughout the continent. And Doktor.se is another Swedish company, and this company offers tele-health services throughout Scandinavia through phones.
So, why form a South African partnership?
“Telehealth investments have skyrocketed and increased by more than 50% since the start of the pandemic. With many of the fastest-growing economies globally, investors and companies (in this case, Webrock and Doktor.se) are now turning to Africa as a major growth region for such high-demand services,” explains TechCrunch.
So in other words, because these companies were able to come together and form a partnership focused on tele-health — even though they didn’t even have a name when they formed — they were able to raise $3 million in pre-Series A funding.
While not much is known about this new tele-health offering, what is known is that it will focus on the uninsured, B2C segment through a freemium-type offering. The platform offers on-demand and scheduled consultations with nurses, general practitioners and mental health professionals.
It will be interesting to see what, ultimately, the name of both this South African partnership and the new tele-health company will be.
