African Epione Health Villages to promote mental health therapy. 2 other stories and a trivia

This line-up of stories will help you discover the latest happenings around the tech world, today

1. African Epione Health Villages to promote mental health therapy

African healthcare startup, Epione Health Villages, on Thursday announced a partnership deal to promote mental health therapy.

The Founder of Epione Health Villages, Garikai Govati, confirmed the partnership deal in a statement, citing it as strategic.

Govati explained that Vimbo Health, which is a digital therapy platform, provides evidence-based Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) based techniques.

Ripples Nigeria gathered that the partnership is a strategic approach to mitigate the high costs associated with treating mental illness and a shortage of technological tools for clinicians.

“While mental health facilities are available, most patients are discouraged by the associated costs and long waiting times.

“This partnership will allow all our patients to enjoy a full spectrum of services available to them affordably and conveniently,” Govati explained.

Tech Trivia: Which HTML element contains one or more fields and a submit button?
A. Form
B. Table
C. Span
D. Iframe
Answer: see end of post

2. U.K healthcare provider, Cera, secures $320m equity and debt financing

A U.K. healthcare provider, Cera, has announced securing $320 million in equity and debt financing.

Read also:Lagos–based identity verification startup, Youverify, secures $1m seed funding. 2 other stories and a trivia

Dr. Ben Maruthappu MBE, while confirming the latest funding in a media release on Thursday said that equity side of the funding round was led by Cera’s existing investor Kairos HQ.

He noted that the round was led alongside the Vanderbilt University Endowment, Schroders Capital, Jane Street Capital, Yabeo Capital, Squarepoint Capital, Guinness Asset Management, Oltre Impact, 8090 Partners, technology investor Robin Klein (of LocalGlobe fame) and others.

Dr. Ben however did not state those financing the debt funding.

The company noted that it also operated in Germany, delivering care, nursing, telehealth, and prescription delivery services in the home.

Dr. Ben Maruthappu MBE launched the startup in 2016, and is headquartered in the U.K

Ben while commenting on the raiser and intent said:

“What we are doing is just mirroring what has happened in other industries, such as ride-hailing or other services that come straight to your door.

“Most healthcare tech is now graduating to healthcare in the home. We have started with older people as they have a high frequency of care visitors.”

Ben further noted that the fund can boost their effort of achieving the aim of reducing hospitalization rates by over 50%.

3. Canada’s Proto secures $5.6M Series A to expand venture

A Canada-based startup, Proto, has announced securing a $5.6M Series A to help it expand its venture.

The startup made the announcement on Thursday in a press statement forwarded to Ripples Nigeria.

Proto, according to local media, helps contact center operators from the Philippines to Zambia to automate local language customer experiences.

Ripples Nigeria gathered that while local languages such as Cebuano, Kinyarwanda, and Twi can be notoriously difficult for chatbots to understand, due to the lack of machine learning training resources; the startup solves the problem by its proprietary natural language processing (NLP) technology.

Speaking on the development, Proto CEO Curtis Matlock said: “In the midst of crises that have been especially hard on people in the emerging world – we believe it’s more important than ever for citizen engagement and customer experience to prioritize inclusion as a guiding principle.

“Proto’s conversational AI deployments for local languages are at the forefront of overcoming long wait times, unresolved cases, and limited language and channel support in over a dozen emerging markets.”

Trivia Answer: Form

A form is a user interface element within a website or software application that allows you to enter and submit data.

It contains one or more fields and an action button, such as Save or Submit.

By Kayode Hamsat

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