ClinicPesa CEO Secures Seed-Fund From MIT D-Lab
Chrispinus Onyancha, Chief Executive at ClinicPesa is among the six East African entrepreneurs that received seed-funding of USD$20,000 (approx. UGX74.2 million) from the MIT D-Lab Scale-Ups Fellowships program.
“Winning this fellowship is a big confirmation,” says Onyancha.
ClinicPesa is a platform providing access to health care financing to individuals in East Africa to offset medical bills, and buy medications at any ClinicPesa-registered clinic, hospital, or pharmacy.
“We strongly believe that creative health care financing should be among key priority focus areas. Especially for marginalized groups in Africa where infant mortality rates are so high and over 20 million people per year till die of preventable and treatable conditions such as malaria.”
Chrispinus Onyancha was the only Ugandan selected for this year’s cohort. The five other social entrepreneur fellows included; Prince Prosper Tillya (Tanzania), Peter Mumo Nyamai (Kenya), Christian Mwilage (Tanzania), Dysmus Kisilu (Kenya), and Winnie Gitau (Kenya).
The MIT D-Lab Scale-Ups fellowship program which supports social entrepreneurs bringing poverty-alleviating products to market at scale — aims to help them reduce risk and position their ventures for investment, partnership, and growth.
Since 2012, the program has supported 39 fellows working. At the close of last year’s cycle, scale-ups fellows had raised USD$11.1 million in funding. In addition, they generated USD$10.2 million in revenue creating over 700 direct and 6,700 indirect full-time equivalent jobs.
