Investing in Innovation Africa (i3), a pan-African initiative to support African healthtech startups to commercialise and scale their offerings, has announced its 3rd cohort of 7 growth-stage companies working to transform pharmacy services on the continent.
Sponsored by the Gates Foundation, MSD, Cencora (formerly AmerisourceBergen), Endless Foundation, HELP Logistics (a subsidiary of the Kühne Foundation), Sanofi’s Global Health Unit, and Chemonics, the three-year program will empower innovators to improve patient access to healthcare across Africa and scale their impact.
In many African countries, pharmacies serve on the frontline of healthcare delivery, providing as much as 70% of initial healthcare visits. For this cohort, i3 has prioritised growth-stage startups with pharmacy-focused innovations, recognising their vital role in expanding sustainable healthcare access and bridging critical delivery gaps while creating jobs to spur economic growth and prosperity.
The selected startups offer powerful, tech-enabled solutions that strengthen African pharmacy services, including inventory management, product protection, last-mile delivery, AI-powered prescription refills, embedded financing, and cloud-based pharmacy systems. These companies are reimagining how medicines and health services reach patients, making essential care more accessible, affordable, and safer.
The selected startups are:
- Chefaa
- Dawa Mkononi
- Meditect
- mPharma
- myDawa
- RxAll
- Sproxil
Together, they demonstrate how data-driven innovation reinforces the resilience of Africa’s health systems while driving economic growth. Operating in 19 countries across the continent, they show the power of locally grounded, scalable solutions to improve patient outcomes, create jobs, and enable more efficient, data-driven healthcare delivery at scale.
Each innovator will receive up to $225K in risk-tolerant funding, tailored customer introductions, bespoke deal facilitation, and professional communications and advocacy support. i3 aims to facilitate ~150 strategic partnerships and influence deals valued at ~$30M between innovators and major healthcare purchasers. In addition, the cohort will participate in i3’s flagship Access to Markets event in December 2025, designed to spark high-impact partnerships between innovators and large healthcare companies, governments, donors, and multilateral agencies.
Boniface Njenga, Deputy Director of Health Delivery and Systems, Africa at the Gates Foundation, commented: “As the global health landscape rapidly shifts, we remain committed to supporting innovative solutions and initiatives that strengthen local health systems across Africa. The i3 program emphasises the transformative potential of technology-driven innovations on the continent when empowered with the right resources, and we have already seen impressive results from the cohorts.”
In the past two years, i3 has provided $3M in direct grant funding to 60 start-ups across 16 African countries. The program has also established a diverse cohort of innovators, with 43% being women-led and 20% Francophone-led. Finally, successes have recorded 450 facilitated strategic connections, including 122 contracts and pilots, resulting in >$11M in contracted partnerships, expanded reach, and nearly 1,000 jobs created—half of which were held by women.
i3 is coordinated by Salient Advisory and Solina Center for International Development and Research (SCIDaR). Startups were selected by an expert committee and with the support of CcHUB and Villgro Africa and an independent expert advisory committee.
For more information about the program, please visit https://innovationsinafrica.com/
