Zipline, a U.S.-based drone logistics firm backed by Goldman Sachs and Sequoia Capital, plans to develop to 5 further Nigerian states by the tip of 2025. This growth follows a memorandum of understanding signed with the Nigerian authorities in September 2024, permitting Zipline to make use of its drone infrastructure to ship important medical provides to distant and underserved areas.
Zipline, which expanded to Nigeria in 2022, operates drone deployment stations, referred to as “nests,” in Bayelsa, Kaduna, and Cross River. The corporate is in talks with 5 extra states to develop its community to seven nests, additional strengthening its function in Nigeria’s healthcare provide chain, based on Akin Oyediran, Zipline Nigeria’s nation supervisor and partnership lead.
“The federal authorities is partnering with us in working with the completely different states as a result of every completely different state has its healthcare system,” Oyediran mentioned. “We’re working collectively to start out deploying nests and have some drone applied sciences to ship these medical provides.”
Nigeria’s healthcare provide chain faces main challenges, together with poor drug storage, unhealthy roads, and widespread counterfeit medicine. Bureaucratic procurement delays in public hospitals usually result in shortages, particularly in rural areas the place many depend on costly non-public care or wait lengthy for important medicines.
Fixing these points requires funding in expertise and infrastructure. Within the South-South area, the place riverine communities depend on bikes, bicycles, boats, and even foot journey for medical provides, deliveries can take hours or days, making well timed healthcare even more durable to entry.
Earlier than Zipline, establishments like LifeBank—a healthtech and logistics firm that delivers important medical merchandise comparable to blood—together with the Africa Useful resource Middle for Excellence in Provide Chain Administration (ARC_ESM) and the Nigeria Provide Chain Integration Mission (NSCIP), had already been working to handle these challenges. One main problem for these organizations is an absence of financing to succeed in many communities. Zipline doesn’t have that problem.
In Could 2023, Zipline raised $330 million in a Collection F spherical, bringing its whole funding to roughly $900 million and valuing the corporate at $4.2 billion. The funding was used to enhance its drone expertise.
Zipline, which operates in eight international locations throughout 4 continents, started its Africa operations in Rwanda in 2016 earlier than increasing to Ghana in 2019. In 2022, it entered Nigeria, Kenya, and Côte d’Ivoire.
Whereas it runs an enormous operation in Rwanda and Ghana, it should start to make vital inroads in Nigerian states this 12 months. The memorandum of understanding it signed in November 2024 with the Nationwide Blood Providers Fee of Nigeria permits it to place a nationwide blood answer in place by the tip of 2025.
Oyediran claims that Zipline’s drones can ship medical provides in as little as half-hour to areas the place conventional healthcare personnel would possibly take as much as 14 hours to succeed in. A McKinsey & Firm evaluation estimated {that a} single-package drone supply has a direct working value of roughly $13.50, with labor representing as much as 95% of the overall value. Zipline declined to share how a lot it costs for drone supply in Nigeria. The corporate’s pricing and contract buildings are tailor-made to the companion’s particular wants and price range. Whereas contract buildings fluctuate by nation and settlement, Zipline doesn’t cost per flight. Its month-to-month charge covers the price of centralized warehousing and stock administration, drone flights, and entry to real-time knowledge and analytics
Every Zipline nest can function as much as 300 drone flights per day, delivering vaccines, anti-malaria medicine, dietary drugs, and just-in-time (JIT) medical provides. Every Zipline distribution hub can serve lots of of supply factors inside a 38,000 km² space. The corporate claims its drones make lots of of deliveries every day, with spherical journeys extending past 200 km.
Nigeria is about 36 instances the scale of Rwanda, the place Zipline operates with simply two nests masking the complete nation. Reaching related protection in Nigeria would require a mean of 1 nest per state, totaling 36 nests for the nation’s 36 states.
Though Zipline’s drones fly autonomously, an worker tracks every drone’s motion on the backend to make sure profitable deliveries. A single drone nest, even when situated in Cross River, can serve sufferers inside an 80-kilometer radius, extending providers to neighboring states.
“We’re going to start out delivering blood and different medical tools to riverine areas the place individuals lack entry to high quality healthcare,” mentioned Oyediran. Past healthcare, Zipline is contemplating an growth into agricultural provide deliveries to assist farmers and a possible entry into e-commerce logistics in Nigeria.
Oyediran says Zipline is betting on Nigeria as a result of it represents a possibility to enhance healthcare on a big scale. The corporate’s mission is to make drone supply attainable for everybody on earth, based on Oyediran.
*Editor’s word: This text has been up to date with further details about the corporate’s supply protection and enterprise mannequin. It has additionally been corrected to incorporate that the corporate is in talks with the federal government for the launch plans.