Investing in Innovation Africa (i3), a pan-African initiative which supports African healthtech startups to commercialise and scale their innovations, has decided to make a pivotal change to its third cohort selection to prioritise the immediate support for 5-7 growth-stage companies building the Future of Pharmacy care in Africa.
The development is in response to the US State Department’s “stop-work” directive for foreign aid issued on January 25, 2025, which is anticipated to impact the distribution of essential medicine in Africa’s healthcare supply chains. The order highlights and intensifies the need for locally-driven, market-creating approaches to health product distribution and service delivery across Africa.
Funded by the Gates Foundation, MSD, Cencora, Endless Foundation, HELP Logistics (a subsidiary of the Kühne Foundation), Sanofi’s Global Health Unit and Chemonics, the i3 program will concentrate its immediate efforts to help innovative growth-stage startups unlock major partnerships to rapidly expand access to patient care. The selected start-ups will also receive up to $225,000 in grant funds. i3 aims to expand support to early-stage companies at a later date.
Applications for the third cohort are open until February 28, 2025.
The selected startups will be announced on April 30, 2025. A virtual Q&A session will be hosted by i3 on February 21, 2025 to answer any questions regarding the application process. i3 is coordinated by Salient Advisory and Solina Center for International Development and Research (SCIDaR).
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