Nigeria and San Francisco-based health tech startup Helium Health has acquired Meddy, a Qatar-headquartered and UAE-based doctor booking platform, for an undisclosed amount. Helium Health’s acquisition of Meddy is a major expansion play. The company, founded by Olubusi, Dimeji Sofowora and Tito Ovia in 2016, is well-known for its core electronic medical records (EMR) and hospital management solutions in Africa. But it has since evolved to offer other services under its platform, including HeliumPay, a billing and payments solution; a collateral-free loan product, HeliumCredit; patient-provider and revenue cycle management service HeliumDoc; and data analytics services. With a presence in six African countries — Nigeria, Ghana, Senegal, Liberia, Kenya, and Uganda — Helium Health has signed more than 500 healthcare facilities. More than 7,000 medical professionals from these facilities now provide care to more than 300,000 patients monthly.
Most platforms in the GCC have use cases that are more vertical than horizontal. For instance, Vezeeta and Okadoc help users book appointments, access teleconsultation services and order medications; Bayzat offers an online platform for HR administration, payroll management and health insurance; and Clinicy runs a digital healthcare management system. So, for enterprise clients to get a holistic EMR experience, they will need to stack these different products on top of each other. Though Helium Health has a wide range of B2B offerings, it lacks in these other areas, especially in telemedicine and appointment bookings, which are more consumer-facing products. The company could have built out these services but acquiring Meddy presented a better option due its expansion play. Apart from providing a doctor booking platform and telemedicine product to manage bookings and patient reviews, Meddy offers marketing solutions for hospitals to improve their online presence and attract new patients.