Drug-checking tech startup RxAll (HAX 2019) recently raised $3.15M in a culmination of a $2M seed round and a $900,000 pre-seed raised last year. The funding was led by SOSV’s HAX, with Launch Africa and Keisuke Honda (via his KSK fund) as participants.
Nigerian-based RxAll hopes to use deep technology to identify counterfeit medication, which harms or kills thousands every year. In Africa alone, 100,000 people die from contaminated or counterfeit drugs annually. RxAll has developed a handheld authenticator device called RxScanner to help patients verify the safety and purity of their drugs. Within 20 seconds, the device can identify the quality of prescription medications and show patients results in real-time through a mobile app.
RxAll also hosts an online marketplace, where a machine learning model on the RxScanner can read a seller’s sample spectra and provide test results verifying the identity and quality of the drug against a reference. Once RxScanner tests a batch, a seller can push its product into the marketplace for on-demand ordering, pick-up, and deliveries.
Following this successful funding round, RxAll plans to take on new partnerships to scale its marketplace first across Nigeria before expanding to the rest of the world.
Speaking to TechCrunch, RxAll CEO Adebayo Alonge said: “Asides from the hospitals, pharmacies and patients, we also sell to governments and country FDAs on the scanner side of things. So we’re looking to secure key partnerships globally, not just in Nigeria, but across Africa, Southeast Asia, North America and South America. Those are the key markets we’re looking to scale into.”
SOSV general partner and HAX managing director Duncan Turner added, “We’ve been incredibly impressed by RxAll’s ability to scale and meet customer demand. In just the last year, the team has brought together world-class hard tech and operational excellence to solve pressing issues for over a million Nigerians, and we couldn’t be more excited by their vision for the broader pharmaceutical market.”