South African e-health startup Zoie Health has raised a pre-seed extension funding round to fund its expansion and growth.
A holistic digital wellness platform for women by women, Zoie Health offers virtual consults, at-home consults, subscriptions for medications, resources and a community of women to support one another through healthcare seasons.
The startup currently serves more than 5,000 members with an 80 per cent subscriber retention rate by successfully leveraging network effects, relatability and belonging. It has also already onboarded 50 health practitioners, and is now planning further growth after raising funding from 4DX Ventures and E Squared Investments.
With the funding, Zoie Health plans to grow Africa’s first digital women’s health clinic by increasing its product offering and expanding to new countries on the continent
“We believe that our offering has great potential to scale, and we will be looking to expand to other African emerging markets in the SADC region, and Kenya and Nigeria,” said Thato Schermer, Zoie Health’s co-founder and CEO.
Gladwyn Leeuw, E Squared’s chief investment officer, said the Zoie Health founding team was extremely experienced in its field, and also 100 per cent black woman-led.
“This formidable team is building a high-impact tech solution that we believe will be a tremendous addition to our portfolio of companies from a values alignment and returns standpoint. The deal is an extension of E Squared’s initial funding and entrepreneurial support through the E Squared Pathways facility,” he said.
“Through this deal, we hope to back digital innovation in women’s health care and put quality affordable health care in the hands of working-class women. We believe that the digital component will make traditionally hard-to-reach services more accessible and provide a viable alternative to those that cannot afford to miss work or stand for hours in long queues at government clinics or who find accessing private sector healthcare prohibitively expensive.”
