Throughout Morocco, from Casablanca, the nation’s largest metropolis and industrial hub, to the nation’s capital metropolis, Rabat, and Safi, a small port metropolis on the Atlantic coast with a inhabitants of lower than 400,000 individuals, sufferers are getting medical session by way of audio and video calls. The identical factor is going on throughout 2 different neighboring Maghreb nations: Tunisia and Algeria. Because of DabaDoc, a North African pioneer healthtech startup connecting all of the stakeholders of the healthcare sector and making them seamlessly cross-accessible.
DabaDoc just isn’t solely a fireplace starter within the well being care sector, it’s additionally an outlier within the enterprise world. In a world the place enterprise capital is the default supply of funding for startups, DabaDoc’s co-founder and CEO Zineb Drissi Kaitouni has chosen an unpopular path to lift cash and scale the corporate into 8 million customers and 4 nations. I not too long ago met with Kaitouni to grasp what it feels prefer to have constructed the primary healthtech startup in North Africa and probably, the most important on the continent.
It was a damp Wednesday afternoon in Abidjan, the place the African CEO discussion board was occurring. All the foyer of the Sofitel resort, the venue for the 2-day occasion, was buzzing with attendees in go well with and tie, recordsdata or suitcases in a single hand whereas shaking with the opposite, chit-chatting their methods into the convention room that’d host no matter session they have been attending subsequent.
In a single convention room, referred to as Kigali Room, Kaitouni, who was a part of a 20-person membership the discussion board tagged The Disruptors Membership, stood on the rostrum, dealing with an viewers of about 100 individuals, and spoke about what she’d been as much as for the previous 8 years. Kaitouni informed a sorry story of the deteriorating state of the African well being sector, after which a proud one which highlighted the passionate work her firm has performed constructing options to enhance the sector.
After the speech, she and I shook fingers and proceeded to discover a spot to sit down and chat. In every single place within the foyer and within the convention rooms was packed and noisy. I steered that we exit to the quiet poolside, however Kaitouni pleaded that we keep inside as a result of outdoors was too humid for her.
We lastly settled into one nook of the resort foyer. “We simply need to be louder than everyone else,” she stated, jokingly, earlier than tucking her telephone away.
In 2014, when constructing healthtech startups was not commonplace in Africa as it’s immediately, Kaitouni co-founded DabaDoc along with her brother Driss Drissi-Kaitouni in Morocco, with a imaginative and prescient to digitise all the healthcare system. The corporate began with the fundamental entry level of reserving an appointment with docs, and was in a position to acquire plenty of traction inside a short while. The next 12 months, it expanded into Algeria and Tunisia, with over 2,000 sufferers actively reserving appointments with docs throughout 75 totally different medical specialties on its platform.
DabaDoc was the best peg in the best gap, and all of the accessible information factors agreed to the actual fact. In North Africa, there’s solely 1 doctor per 1,000 people. The ratio was even worse in Morocco; as of 2017, there have been 7.2 doctors for 10,000 residents, one of many lowest ratios within the area. In Tunisia, the typical was 12.7 docs, and in neighboring Algeria, the typical was 18. This deficit has made healthcare inaccessible to a fantastic portion of the Maghreb’s inhabitants. And this isn’t peculiar to the area. It’s, in actual fact, a replicable problem throughout the continent. Nonetheless, Kaitouni believed that know-how may improve accessibility by decreasing time-wasting friction and enabling docs to be extra accessible and proactive in attending to sufferers. The corporate then launched a telemedicine (consulting docs or the medical practitioner on the telephone) and video session providing, a characteristic that may eradicate the time it’d take to commute to the hospital. On the time of launching, the characteristic have been utilized by only some medical practitioners that have been fast to perceive its worth proposition.
Strategic funding over VC funding
Whereas being bootstrapped, DabaDoc skilled regular development, buying customers, increasing its attain throughout its 3 markets, and enhancing its know-how. In 2018, nonetheless, AXA Assurance Maroc, invested in DabaDoc, making the insurance coverage firm its first institutional investor. At the moment, the corporate had already recorded over 2 million appointments booked by means of its platform. Kaitouni stated this strategic deal opened DabaDoc as much as an enormous new set of customers as they might now provide medical insurance by means of AXA, which was the most important medical insurance supplier within the area. This milestone was nice, however not as nice because the one the COVID-19 pandemic would usher in.
The pandemic disrupted a variety of sectors—for good and in any other case. DabaDoc was within the sector disrupted for good. As motion grew to become restricted through the lockdown and folks wanted to fulfill up with their physician’s appointment, DabaDoc, which was already serving to with appointment reserving and providing digital session, grew to become the go-to platform. “It was a case of readiness meets alternative,” Kaitouni stated. “The pandemic actually helped us to democratise entry to telehealth as a result of everybody was calling us.” She stated the expansion was exponential and the corporate went from recording about 1,000 consultations month-to-month to doing over the identical quantity each day. The pattern that lasted all through the pandemic continues post-pandemic. Whereas the variety of telehealth consultations may need dropped as a result of bodily consultations are again, Kaitouni stated some specialists persist with telehealth, besides in crucial circumstances the place bodily inspections are wanted.
In June final 12 months, Orange, the French telecoms large, joined forces with AXA to accumulate a majority stake in DabaDoc. Apparently, Kaitouni loved the style of strategic funding and was able to double down on it with Orange. “We didn’t go for the VC funding. We went for the funding that brings strategic partnership due to all of the synergies that they’re bringing to us,” Kaitouni stated when requested why she hasn’t raised from VC like everyone else. DabaDoc is constructing a well being care utopia the CEO believes is extra achievable by collaborating with corporations in possession of required infrastructure, group, and funds, relatively than one with simply the money. The corporate now leverages AXA’s broad expertise in curating bespoke well being merchandise and Orange’s technological experience, fee infrastructure and large distribution channel, to unlock speedy development throughout the African healthcare ecosystem.
Kaitouni’s journey hasn’t been linear. She’s wandered throughout the globe in a divine seek for objective. From a promising profession in finance to a failed ecommerce enterprise, to founding a thriving healthtech startup, she has certainly come a great distance. She began her Wall Road profession at Goldman Sachs as a fund supervisor in 2003, proper after school, and left for Canada to pursue a grasp’s diploma in finance in 2007. After 12 years of educational {and professional} expedition away in North America, she returned to Morocco in 2012 to assist construct a thriving digital financial system. After some analysis, she determined to construct for the sector that want pressing digital intervention probably the most—well being care.
Kaitouni actually has her pores and skin deep within the sport. She stated the choice to bootstrap for 4 years earlier than taking up funding was intentional. “We wished to construct a stable enterprise that everyone would need to be related to,” she stated. Kaitouni has received a number of awards for her pioneering work in African healthtech area. She was one in every of solely 2 African corporations named Tech Pioneer by the World Financial Discussion board in 2019, the identical 12 months she grew to become an Endeavor Entrepreneur.
In June, the corporate launched its Ivorian operation along side Orange. Kaitouni informed TechCabal that they’re launching in Cote d’Ivoire as a result of it’s Orange’s largest market. Quickly, they are going to be current in all of the markets the French telecoms large operates. Leveraging Orange’s monetary service may, DabaDoc will quickly allow individuals within the diaspora to pay for session for his or her members of the family again on the continent.
At the moment, over 8 years later, DabaDoc is a healthtech powerhouse owned by Orange, AXA and the Kaitouni siblings. It now has entry to Orange’s 135 million clients in Africa and the Center East and hundreds of thousands of AXA clients. There’s presently no African startup with direct entry to such big shopper pool and pipeline, particularly not in healthtech. With over 10,000 docs and eight million customers, Kaitouni stated solely 4 different startups are presently on their degree on this planet: French Doctolib (raised $815 million); Indian Practo (raised $228.2 million); American Zocdoc (raised $375.9 million); and Egyptian Vezeeta (raised 71.5 million).
“However even you possibly can see that we have now the biggest development rail. We will develop as a lot as our companions and much more. Are you aware what meaning?” Kaitouni requested, proudly.