Susu, a global health-tech company, focused on making healthcare accessible and affordable for every African, has completed a €2 million pre-seed funding round.
The funding was raised by angel investors, grant financing from BPI France, the French government’s public investment bank and debt.
Susu was founded in 2019 by Bola Bardet alongside Laurent Leconte (Chief Technology Officer) and Sandrine Egron (Chief Operations Officer), to serve thousands of Africans. Susu offers bundled health services that provide patients with planned, long-term health support, in order to ensure optimal monitoring of their health conditions, including pregnancy, child care, and chronic disease management.
Christopher Neves, one of Susu’s angel investors and a senior executive with experience in multinational insurance groups, spoke on the funding saying he saw the potential of the project and the team’s capacity in executing the project.
“I have been following Susu since the beginning of the project. And I see its huge potential, focused on building a solution to provide access to affordable healthcare in Africa through technology.”
Christopher Neves, angel investor
Susu’s services
Studies show that the medical insurance penetration rate is less than 3% in Africa, leaving 97% of the population having to pay for medical expenses out of their pockets. This is evident on social media as people often come there to solicit medical funds.
Susu is out to mitigate this problem by supporting beneficiaries’ healthcare journeys through care bundles while using an integrated approach to better connect the patients, their families, and healthcare professionals.
The inspiration for Susu was born out of tragedy as Bola lost her father due to the mismanagement of his medical condition.
“I knew that the situation could have been prevented if he had access to comprehensive healthcare and that’s why I started Susu, to provide access to quality and affordable healthcare to others.”
Bola Bardet, founder of Susu
With Susu, users can access a system that caters to collective financing – payment for service through several contributors, whether close relatives or members of the African diaspora. This feature was included based on demand from customers that wanted to contribute financially to the health care of a beneficiary.
Their services also include health bundles (a combination of medical and logistical services) and access to a quality medical network carefully selected by Susu’s experts.
Currently operating in Senegal, Cameroon, France, and Ivory Coast, the health tech company had a 400% growth rate in terms of revenue and a 5x increase in customer base in 2021, a testament to the high demand for their services.
Expansion
With its recent funding, Susu intends to launch the service in 6 new countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, including Nigeria and Ghana. It is also developing new care bundles including a maternity care bundle to reduce mortality risk for pregnant women and their babies.
There are also plans to grow the company’s team and enrich the technology platform with new features. On the use of technology in the health sector, Bola Bardet is confident that it will be just as prominent as in the financial sector.
“Like financial inclusion is being improved with mobile payment solutions, technology is going to play a tremendous role over the next decade in providing solutions to tackle the challenges faced by the healthcare systems over the continent”.