African healthtech will move when it saves cash first, digitises records second
Tosin Faniro Dada, Partner West Africa
Most healthtech decks still assume hospitals have the budget and capacity to care about “efficiency”. They don’t. Talk to real operators, and their priorities are blunt: keep the lights on, pay staff, restock medication, etc. In that world, EMRs and slick workflows are not urgent; reducing the diesel bill or stopping revenue leakage is urgent.
The macro context explains the mood. Per-capita health spending in sub-Saharan Africa is a fraction of global averages, and the region is heading into a severe shortage of clinical staff. Under that pressure, it’s not shocking that “nice” digitisation projects stall. We’ve already seen AI transcription startups abandon hospitals and pivot to call centres, where budgets and ROI are clearer. Meanwhile, tools that cut waste, power-optimisation for clinics, or platforms that help hospitals actually collect revenue get traction quickly because they hit the P&L directly.
By 2026, the healthtech companies that matter will all start with the same question: “Where is money being lost or wasted today, and how do we fix it?” Everything else, structured data, clean interfaces, and improved workflows come after.
In particular, I expect 2026 to see accelerated demand for:
- Energy and asset-management platforms for hospitals and clinics that cut power costs, optimise generator usage and improve equipment uptime, with payback measured in months, not years.
- Revenue-cycle, claims, and claims-financing tools that directly increase cash collected, from better coding, pricing, reconciliation, and fraud detection to financing slow insurance claims, so hospitals aren’t waiting months to get paid. These solutions drive adoption by smoothing cash flow.
- Targeted virtual and hybrid care models that bypass overstretched facilities for specific use cases (for example, maternal health, chronic follow-up), while still integrating into real payment and referral pathways.
In African healthtech, anything that “feels modern” but doesn’t shift a line item on the cashflow statement will remain a pilot. Real adoption will follow the money, not the UI.
African healthtech that looks like infrastructure and distribution, not just apps, will scale.
Ben Marrel, Co-founder & CEO
During COVID, African healthtech attracted a wave of urgency and donor attention. It was natural to back apps and telemedicine pilots and assume ministries, NGOs or insurers would eventually pay for scale. The reality is more constrained: health budgets are tight everywhere, and out-of-pocket spend across the continent is limited.
The numbers are stark. Healthtech funding in Africa fell about 70% year-on-year in 2024, down to roughly $65m from $212m in 2023, even though around $1bn has been invested in the category since 2019. At the same time, institutions like the African Development Bank committed about $1bn to health projects in 2024, including hospitals and digital tools, delivered through public-private partnerships. The capital has not vanished; it has moved into vehicles that tie innovation directly to reimbursable services in primary care, diagnostics and supply chains.
The founders who will build lasting companies accept that they are selling into governments, donors and insurers first, and only later to consumers, and they design products, pricing and evidence accordingly.
What buyers will prioritise in 2026:
- Supply-chain and procurement platforms that reduce stockouts and wastage for ministries of health and large hospital groups, not just private pharmacies.
- Diagnostics and remote monitoring tools that integrate with national health records and can be reimbursed under existing donor or insurance schemes.
- Workforce tools that make nurses, community health workers and clinicians dramatically more productive, rather than trying to replace them.
In African healthtech, polished apps with unclear business models will struggle to move beyond pilots. Solutions that sit on real budget lines and improve system efficiency will have the chance to reach scale.
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