Helium Health, a Nigeria-based health tech startup has acquired Meddy, a Qatar-headquartered and UAE-based doctor booking platform for an undisclosed amount in a deal that appears unusual as it overlaps Africa and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC); two regions that rarely collaborate in tech.
The rare move by the Nigerian health provider is believed to be driven by the zeal to exploit other healthcare platforms whilst also taking advantage of a growing opportunity in the GCC region, where investment in digital infrastructure is expected to be 30% of the healthcare investment between 2023 to 2030.
As part of the deal, both health specialists are expected to play integral roles in Helium’s execution of its GCC strategy and operations as the leadership of both teams work together.
Why the deal is important
The acquisition is expected to strengthen a holistic Electronic Medical Report, EMR experience by combining the special offering and wide reach of both platforms to deliver on enterprise client’s needs and provide various services on one platform ranging from the EMR and management information systems to revenue cycle management as well as consolidated analytics and telemedicine services.
Helium Health has a presence in six African countries including, Nigeria, Ghana, Senegal, Liberia, Kenya and Uganda coupled with over 7,000 medical professionals signed in over 500 healthcare facilities to provide care to more than 300,000 patients monthly.
Similarly, most platforms in the GCC focus more on cases that are more vertical than horizontal. For instance, Vezeeta and Okadoc help users to book appointments, access teleconsultation services and order medications while Bayzat offers an online platform for HR administration, payroll management and health insurance and Clinicy runs a digital healthcare management system.
Combining these features, Helium health is positioned to deliver a doctor booking platform and telemedicine product to manage bookings and patient reviews, as well as marketing solutions for hospitals to improve their online presence and attract new patients.
What they are saying
Speaking on how the deal would help to improve on service delivery to customers, Adegoke Olubusi, Helium Health CEO explained that Meddy will merge with Helium Health’s patient-provider and revenue cycle management platform under the name Helium Doc.
She said, “Meddy offers marketing solutions for hospitals to improve their online presence and attract new patients. But we can provide a full suite where you can do your appointment bookings, marketing solution, EMR, hospital management information system, and have everything in a one-stop-shop. It saves you a lot of stress in the process from trying to consolidate many different systems.”
She added that the similarities that both platforms share make it easy for both companies to sign off the deal in less than four months.
Olubusi said, “Beyond the actual product and market opportunity, what made this possible was really the composition of the team, how well they executed the fact that they share a DNA and culture that’s very similar to ours.”
Harris Aghadi, Meddy CEO also added that the partnership will give interoperability to its clients as it provides open API, making it easy for data to move between them. She remarked that interoperability is a very big challenge in the region, and having this one-stop place like theirs solves that issue.
