Nigeria’s healthcare sector is changing fast, thanks to a new generation of founders using technology to solve real problems. From connecting patients to caregivers to making diagnostics more accessible, these ten entrepreneurs are making quality healthcare available to more Nigerians than ever before.
- Folake Owodunni (Emergency Response Africa)
Folake Owodunni is the co-founder and CEO of a health tech company, Emergency Response Africa (ERA). With 16 years of experience in the healthcare sector, she has played her part in making healthcare accessible in Africa and has earned awards for her contributions to the health tech industry. Some of her awards include the Aurora Tech Award and the Google Black Founders Fund. Her company, ERA, operates an emergency dispatch system for ambulances in Lagos and has helped reduce preventable deaths.
- Feyi Olopade (CancerIQ)
Feyi Olopade is a healthcare tech entrepreneur and innovator who is highly regarded for her contributions to expanding access to healthcare. She is the founder of CancerIQ, a fast-growing precision health platform that allows providers to identify, evaluate, and manage entire patient populations based on individual genetic risk factors. The over-13-year-old company is known for the significant contributions it made alongside Feyi during the COVID-19 pandemic, which made confirming your health status easier and helped providers continue to identify high-risk patients with potential cancer diagnoses, replace lost in-person visit volume, and triage care to avoid a second wave of COVID-19-related deaths. In 2019, she was named to Crain’s Chicago Business 40 Under 40 list, a recognition of her work in health tech.
- Ifeoluwa Dare-Johnson (Healthtracka)
Ifeoluwa Dare-Johnson is a Nigerian health tech founder and entrepreneur who started out in medical biochemistry and pivoted to the health tools industry. Starting her career with over a decade of experience in data analytics and marketing, Ifeoluwa eventually took a leap of faith and created “Healthtracka,” an easily accessible tool to check your health status from the comfort of your home. In her early stage, Ifeoluwa raised $1.5 million in seed funding for her startup.
- Temie Giwa-Tubosun (LifeBank)
Temie Giwa Tubosun is a health manager and the brain and founder of LifeBank, a company created to improve blood transfusion services in Nigeria. She started her career in health and continued following that career trajectory into creating One Percent Project, a non governmental initiative created with the aim of ending blood shortage, educating people on the importance of blood donation for anyone in need of blood to overcome fears, prejudice, myths and apathy of people on blood donation, and increasing an efficient distribution network of blood in blood banks in Nigeria. She eventually pivoted, and LifeBank was born.
- Adeola Ayoola (Famasi)
Adeola is the co-founder and CEO of Famasi, a seed-stage health tech platform that has contributed to the success of pharmaceutical companies by managing operations and tracking stock in real time across a connected network. With a degree in pharmacy and roots in entrepreneurship, Adeola is committed to making healthcare more accessible through smarter tools and technology. Her career began in pharmacy over 7 years ago, with experience across retail, wholesale, primary healthcare, hospital pharmacy & supply chain management. Adeola has a mission to empower pharmacies with all the right tools to make care accessible across Africa.
- Adegoke Olubusi (Helium Health)
Adegoke Olubusi is a Nigerian entrepreneur and the co-founder and CEO of Helium Health, the largest electronic medical records provider in West Africa, backed by Y Combinator and Tencent. Adegoke holds a degree in Engineering & Management from Johns Hopkins University & Morgan State and began his career as a building developer of payment systems at Goldman Sachs, eBay & PayPal. Alongside Helium Health, Adegoke has built other prominent technology companies and has a prolific track record of investing in startups across countries. He has spent more than a decade in his career finding ways to revolutionize the health tech industry, and with Helium Tech, he has achieved a significant part of his goals.
- Samuel Okwuada (Remedial Health)
Samuel Okwuada is the CEO and co-founder of Remedial Health, a YCombinator-backed Nigerian healthtech startup that has raised over $50 million. While his focus is on improving the health care system in Nigeria and reducing the inflow of counterfeit drugs, he has helped make health care more accessible through Remedial and contributed to the growth of the health tech sector in Nigeria.
- Abasi Ene-Obong (54gene/Syndicate Bio)
Abasi Ene-Obong is a Nigerian entrepreneur and biomedical scientist with a master’s degree in human molecular genetics. He founded 54thGene Inc., a defunct Nigerian health and biotech firm specializing in African genomics, which he grew to a valuation of nearly $200m, and he served as CEO before stepping down in 2022. He is currently the CEO and founder of Syndicate Bio, a health technology company driving genomics and precision medicine initiatives in global healthcare. Abasi has been honored with awards and recognition, including being named in 2021 one of the 100 most influential young Africans by Avance Media and, in 2022, a Top 20 under-40 biotech leader by Endpoint News.
- Dr Ola Brown (Flying Doctors, HealthCap)
Ola Orekunrin is a medical doctor and healthcare entrepreneur, the brain behind the Flying Doctors Healthcare Investment Group. She is also the director of Greentree Investment Company and has training in aviation medicine. Ola became the CEO of West Africa’s first air ambulance service. Dr Ola Orekunrin was listed among the 2013 Young Global Leaders by the World Economic Forum.
- Chika Madubuko (GreyMate Care)
Chika Madubuko is a Nigerian bioengineer, entrepreneur, and co-founder and CEO of Greymate Care, a digital platform founded in 2016 that connects elderly individuals with qualified, professional caregivers across Nigeria. She holds a BSc in Microbiology from Nnamdi Azikiwe University and an MSc in Biotechnology and Bioengineering from the University of Hertfordshire, UK, and has built a career spanning multinational companies, including Amazon UK and Guinness Nigeria. Driven by a personal experience seeking care for her grandmother, she has grown Greymate Care into a leading healthtech solution that has created over 1,000 jobs. Her goal is to collaborate with major companies in the healthcare industry, expand into additional African nations, and increase the number of service users to 35,000 by 2030.
