Nigeria’s MediSpark launches venture to enhance healthcare. 2 other things and a trivia

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

1. Nigeria’s MediSpark launches venture to enhance healthcare

Nigerian healthcare enhancer startup, MediSpark, has launched its venture as an ecosystem of APIs and SaaS tools to synchronise data across Africa’s fragmented healthcare systems.

Described as “Truepill for Africa”, MediSpark was founded by Ugo Nwokoro and Gbenga Oyeniyi.

Speaking on his background, Nwokoro revealed that his family has been in the healthcare business for two generations – running hospitals, pharmacies and laboratories.

Nwokoro is a product manager and UX designer, while Oyeniyi has been a programmer for over 10 years, and has built edtech platforms for universities and secondary schools.

Nwokoro said: “We started working on MediSpark in 2017 after both working in a hospital together and witnessing the challenges ourselves.

“We released a rough MVP in 2018 and started selling. But we only went full-time in January this year when we decided we’d understood the market well enough, and were ready to build a second version of our product and raise money.”

Tech Trivia: What is FTP primarily used for?

A Transferring files over the Internet
B Sending secure email messages
C Establishing firewalls within networks
D Routing fiber-optic connections
Answer: See end of post

2. US-based SOSV names 3 African startups in latest cross-border cohort

SOSV, a United States (US)-based venture capital firm, has named three African startups among the 10 companies in its cross-border programme.

The startups namely: Egypt’s DXwand, Kenya’s MarketForce and Nigeria’s PricePally will receive approximately US$150,000 in seed funding.

READ ALSO: Ed-tech startup eLearn Africa to deliver free courses to university students

SOSV provides multi-stage investment to develop and scale big ideas for positive change, investing in 150 companies every year through category-leading startup development programs.

According to the VC, the 10 startups chosen for this cohort are tackling global challenges from food security for Africa to lending solutions for the unbanked, and three of them hail from Africa.

Profiling the startups, Egypt’s DXwand is said to be a conversational AI tool to automate and extract insights from conversations in Arabic dialects and English.

While Kenya’s MarketForce is a mobile-first SME digitisation platform, Nigeria’s PricePally is a group-buying platform for agricultural products.

3. Robotics startup FJDynamics raises $70M

Looking to make manual labor easier, FJDynamics, has raised a Series B round of $70 million.

Founded by DJI’s former chief scientist Wu Di, the startup seeks to advance its goal to empower workers in the harshest environment with robotic technologies.

Wu worked on cutting-edge technology before starting FJDynamics in 2019.

FJDynamics as a venture set out with a focus on agricultural robots, building tools like unmanned lawnmowers, orchard sprayers and feed pushing machines.

FJDynamics itself has attracted a rank of heavyweight financiers, including Tencent and state-owned automaker Dongfeng Asset Management.

At the moment, about 40% of the startup’s sales happen outside China across some 60 countries.

Trivia Answer: FTP

Stands for “File Transfer Protocol.” FTP is a protocol designed for transferring files over the Internet. Files stored on an FTP server can be accessed using an FTP client, such as a web browser, FTP software program, or a command line interface.

An FTP server can be configured to enable different types of access. For example, an “anonymous FTP” configuration allows anyone to connect to the server.

Join the conversation

Opinions

Support Ripples Nigeria, hold up solutions journalism

Balanced, fearless journalism driven by data comes at huge financial costs.

As a media platform, we hold leadership accountable and will not trade the right to press freedom and free speech for a piece of cake.

If you like what we do, and are ready to uphold solutions journalism, kindly donate to the Ripples Nigeria cause.

Your support would help to ensure that citizens and institutions continue to have free access to credible and reliable information for societal development.

Donate Now