South African diabetes health and insurtech startup Guidepost has raised an undisclosed amount of funding from Rand Merchant Investments, through its fintech investment arm AlphaCode, to help it expand internationally.
A technology platform that enables highly personalised, data-driven diabetes management at scale, Guidepost allows patients to better manage their illness, and during its six years of operation has achieved a 45 per cent reduction in diabetes complications across more than 8,000 patients.
The startup, which also allows insurers to significantly better manage their diabetes risk, is posied to expand abroad, and with that in mind has now raised funding from Rand Merchant Investments through AlphaCode. The size of the investment is undisclosed but AlphaCode has taken a 25.1 per cent stake in Guidepost.
“We’re delighted to partner with AlphaCode and RMI as we grow our business. We already work with life insurers such as OUTsurance, innovative medical schemes such as CAMAF and pharmaceutical businesses such as Novo Nordisk. The heart of our business is a network of caring diabetes coaches empowered by our technology. We look forward to supporting our coaches and patients even better with RMI’s involvement,” said Graham Rowe, chief executive officer (CEO) and co-founder of Guidepost.
The funding will be used to bring in key executive skills, further develop Guidepost’s differentiated clinical technology, and scale the business locally and globally with insurance partners.
Dominique Collett, senior investment executive at Rand Merchant Investments, said she believed that Guidepost’s growth would come from applying its health-tech capabilities to the insurance industry.
“Guidepost has already started programmes at insurers where they are underwriting diabetic lives and managing these patients on the program in collaboration with Swiss Re. There is also the opportunity for the skilled leadership team to roll out this methodology for other diseases and chronic conditions,” she said.
To date, AlphaCode has directly invested in Prodigy Finance (2017), Entersekt (2017), Merchant Capital (2015) and Luno (2017).
