Tech company nurtures healthtech startup to tackle blood delivery challenge

Nigeria’s leading tech hub, Co-Creation Hub, has nurtured a fast rising startup,

In a report by Quartz Africa, Lifebank was able to raise $200,000 two years after launching with an unfashionable, but vital, business idea.

The $200,000 fund raised, will enable to the new to drive its growth for the next 18 months and spread its services across Abuja and Kaduna.

It was further reported that investors that have been able to help with the fund include EchoVC Partners, and Fola Laoye, an investor with over 20 years of experience in Nigeria’s healthcare industry.

The delighted Co-Creation Hub, where LifeBank has been incubated since launch, through its Growth Capital fund which targets social innovation startups, was quick to announce the achievement on Twitter.

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Lifebank founder, Temie Giwa-Tubosun noted that LifeBank has moved products valued at $360,000 and has earned revenues of nearly $100,000 from charging a fee for delivery.

Giwa-Tubosun also revealed that in total, using WHO-approved equipment, it has moved 9,000 pints of blood.

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“It’s increasingly clear that to get a significant chunk of the market we have to work with government systems. We want to use Kaduna as a model of what we can do in that ," she tells Quartz.

Nigeria’s fast-growing tech-based startup scene has been boosted in the last two years with a large share of funding going to fintech and e-commerce companies.

Sadly, less attention has been paid to health as a sector where technology or new business models can be used to disrupt what is widely acknowledged as a broken system.