The HGS Accelerator for Pandemic Resilience is an initiative that aims to accelerate the growth of African healthcare companies to strengthen the continent’s pandemic resilience, in line with the African Union's Agenda 2063 aspirations. This is achieved through offering hands-on and tailored support to growth and mature stage healthcare businesses. AUDA-NEPAD founded the accelerator initiative in 2020 in partnership with the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) and with support from the Boston Consulting Group (BCG), a global management consulting firm, and Villgro Africa, an experienced Pan-African Accelerator.

In early 2022, we selected 14 African healthcare ventures and provided 6 months of acceleration support to help them scale their businesses. Each company received tailored support based on their needs, on topics including investment readiness, pitch deck preparation, business model and financial model assessment, target operating model, salesforce effectiveness and org design.

We have continued to track the successes of our two cohorts and are proud to note that we have achieved all the milestones set for the accelerator, in addition to enabling the HGS to serve 950K patients and raise ~$18M in the last 2 years. Furthermore, the HGS shared they would hihly recommend the programme as a result of the great experience throughout the programme, represented in a high NPS score.

Image1: Summary of HGS successes over the last 2 years

On 28th October, we hosted a public webinar to showcase 11 HGS companies’ successes and to present their businesses to key stakeholders. We had 3 sessions where we grouped the HGS into Tele-Health providers, Medical device manufacturers and tech platforms, and Medical care/ diagnostic provision. The event was a success with >200 registrations and ~70 attendees in total from organisations e.g. DOB Equity, Ethos, AfricInvest.

Image 2: Screenshot of different HGS presentations during the pitch session

Image 3: Screenshot of networking session using a digital platform called “Gather town”

To conclude, we have started preparations for the 2023 cohort, identifying high potential healthcare companies, particularly those with a strong ambition to expand their business across Africa and to contribute to socio-economic development of Africa. We will continue to share regular updates.