Healthtech startup, Reliance Health, closes $40M round. 1 other thing and a trivia

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

1. Healthtech startup, Reliance Health, closes $40M round

Reliance Health, a Lagos/Texas-based digital healthcare provider, has announced closing a $40 million Series B round.

Described as the largest of its kind in African healthtech, the round was led by General Atlantic.

According to reports, healthtech in Africa is expected to reach a market value of over US$11 billion by 2025.

Reliance Health was founded in 2016 by Femi Kuti, Opeyemi Olumekun and Matthew Mayaki.

The startup uses an integrated process to provide health insurance and telemedicine via partnerships with hospitals and healthcare facilities.

Speaking on the development, chief executive officer Femi Kuti, noted that the company is leveraging technology to provide healthcare services.

He said: “Our mission is super simple. I mean, the definition is simple, but the execution is sometimes more difficult than that. So essentially what we’re trying to do is to use technology to make quality health care accessible and affordable in emerging markets.”

Tech Trivia: Which of the following came first?

A Phreaking
B Phishing
C Smishing
D Pharming
Answer: See end of post

2. Auto-tech startup, Carscan secures follow-on investment worth $1.3m

South African autotech startup, Carscan, has secured a follow-on funding round worth ZAR20 million (US$1.3) million to help it expand its operations.

Reputed as an augmented reality (AR) app with embedded artificial intelligence (AI), Carscan creates an accurate, reliable, agnostic, complete, and traceable digital record of a car.

Users acknowledged that the platform helps automotive ecosystems buy, sell, rent, service, insure, finance and auction cars with great confidence by eliminating fraud, governance, and industry risks.

In addition, the digital application allows anyone to assess and extract details of a car in less than a minute, expediting the insurance claim process from weeks to minutes.

The startup was founded by Obins Choudhary and Chander Prakash, and closed a seed round in late 2020, led by Kalon Venture Partners alongside Launch Africa Ventures and the IDF.

The new round features the three initial investors, as well as Allan Gray E2 Ventures and AlphaCode.

Trivia Answer: Phreaking

Phreaking is a slang term that describes the action of experimenting with or manipulating a telephone system. Since phreaking took place before personal computers became popular, it is sometimes considered to be the precursor to computer hacking.

While not all phreaking activities are illegal, the term is often associated with using a phone system to make free long distance calls. Early phone systems has limited security features, which allowed “phreaks” to tap into analog phone lines and make calls free of charge.

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