Ponea Health is Looking for Investors to Improve Access to Healthcare for Underserved Populations

Sven Hermans, Board Member at Ponea Health, talks investment opportunities in Ponea, the revolutionary online healthcare marketplace that offers convenience, discretion and lower cost of healthcare to africans living in urban areas.

“5 millions have been raised so far. We have been working very hard on building the platform and proof-of-concept. The platform that we have developed is the marketplace. It is a scalable technology platform with 4 dimensions. Number one is the B2B and the B2C retail engine, where the consumer can engage with healthcare services. Number two is the FinTech side, which is banks, telecoms and insurance grants, as well as a platform part that enables interaction with these services and parties. Number three is a pharmaceutical brand platform where providers of pharmaceutical services can market their propositions and products. And then, finally, the healthcare providers side, such as doctors and health entrepreneurs, where we allow them to run their business, including patient management and patient records. In the proof-of-concept phase we have served around 20,000 consumers with health services and those consumers interacted with around 1,000 providers of healthcare services to generate 1.5 million USD in revenue. That is what has been achieved so far and a lot of lessons have been learned, which will now be used to move from the proof-of-concept into the commercialization phase”, says Sven Hermans.

“To date, we have only raised money from angel investors. We are having a variety of dialogues with potential new investors. As we move from the proof-of-concept phase into the commercialization and scaling up phase, we would like to start shifting our investor base from angels to more impact and more corporate VC types of investors. In Q4 2022, we did have dialogues with our existing investors, looking at the current environment in investment venture capital, to gauge whether they wanted to invest additional funding into the company, to continue Ponea’s work around proof-of-concept and create funding runway. That was more a reach out to existing angel investors than on-boarding of bigger types of investors. It also allowed us to conclude the proof-of-concept phase and demonstrate proof-of-impact, which of course creates a stronger and more robust base for dialogues with new investors. We are looking for investors who will not just bring money, but who are passionate and fully on-board with the mission and the vision we are aiming to deliver, i.e. improving access to care for underserved populations. Secondly, we are looking at what they can contribute to commercialization and scaling. Do they bring experience or go-to market capabilities in certain markets? Do they bring complementary experience with FinTech? Do they bring specific experience with digital marketplaces in the healthcare domain? Those dimensions are similar and go “beyond the money”. That is why we are looking at impact investors and having a variety of dialogues in Europe and the US to attract them. Corporate investors are interesting, especially if they have a similar view on what the opportunity is and how to best unlock it. Access to care in Africa is a very specific area. So we need to make sure that we think about those things it in the same way. Finally, venture capitalists that have been investing in this domain before would also fit. As said however, the most important part is shifting from the angel investors to a different type of investors, which would of course also help us create a further step up in our governance and board structure, because that too is what we would expect from some of these investors”, he adds.

ABOUT PONEA HEALTH: Ponea provides an online healthcare marketplace that offers convenience, discretion and lower cost of healthcare to africans living in urban areas. Ponea targets to consolidate 70% of private healthcare providers online to provide greater choice and access for patients, and more cost-efficient operations for providers from the marketplace enablers. Ponea enables expansion of private healthcare through enhanced distribution of medical services thus creating jobs and driving full employment of the scarce medical providers.

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