Nigerian tracking and monitoring health tech startup, Chekkit has raised an undisclosed round from Adaverse, a Cardano ecosystem…
Nigerian tracking and monitoring health tech startup, Chekkit has raised an undisclosed round from Adaverse, a Cardano ecosystem accelerator, with participation from existing investors like RTA, HoaQ, Launch Africa, and Blockchain Founders Fund.
Recall that the startup raised a pre-seed funding round of $500,000 in August 2021 which had participation from the Pan-African VC fund, Launch Africa, Japanese government investment fund, Japan Strategic capital, the Blockchain Founders Fund, two syndicate groups of angel investors with completing grants from the Orange Corners programme. Now this additional funding to scale is coming almost two years after.
Chekkit Technologies was founded in 2018 by Dare Odumade with the support of Oluwatosin Adelowo and Samuel Ukhueleigbe as Co-Founders. With its blockchain technology, Chekkit is able to monitor premium packaged goods and products through the unique tamper-proof ID it gives to individual products.
The 4-year-old startup has reportedly helped secure over 50 million pharmaceutical and consumer goods products so far, ensuring that end users always have access to safe and genuine products.
According to the press release, over the next 2 years, the Nigerian pharmaceutical industry will catch up with the rest of the world in mandating that pharmaceutical products implement end-to-end serialisation and traceability. And for Chekkit, this is a huge opportunity to scale its tech stack that provides manufacturers with serialisation and traceability of all packaging levels in line with global standards.
The newly raised funds will help Chekkit onboard more manufacturers across Nigeria and other regions in Africa, while also spreading its tentacles to new markets in India, UK and the Middle East with a target to become the #1 Traceability platform in Africa.
Comment from Chekkit CEO
Commenting on the reception of the brand so far on the African continent in a chat with Technext, Dare Odumade, Chekkit’s CEO said:
“Brands perceive Chekkit as a more innovative option when compared with existing competitors. We have less down time with USSD and Mobile App authentication of serial codes, plus we have an advantage of providing market insights based on data directly acquired from consumer surveys. On the consumer side, we’ve seen a higher number of authentications to the rate of 3-5x the competition’s average and this is because we offer incentives to consumers.”
Chekkit just raised 7-figures In funding which is quite significant considering that the broader ecosystem is currently experiencing a decline in investment flow. But Dare Odumade says the healthcare sector in Africa is receiving more interest of investments because after fintech and supply chain (logistics), supply chain in PHARMA is a major space that needs disruption and cracking it will not only improve the quality of life of the African population but also provide gains for early investors.
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Now that the fundraising is done, the Chekkit CEO says the target is to drive market penetration in Africa and the Middle East by improving their technology and team. According to him, the governments in these regions are beginning to create policies to ensure pharmaceutical manufacturers and importers implement traceability as a precursor to trade in the region, and Chekkit will be there to ease the adoption of businesses cost effectively in these regions
He further remarks that the challenge of fake products on the continent is alarming but even more challenging is the lack of traceability standards particularly in the pharmaceutical industry which leads to product market diversions, huge financial and market share losses to businesses, poor inventory control and eventually deaths of children and adults from the consumption of counterfeits.
Subsequently, Chekkit has intentions to incorporate AI features into their systems.
“AI is a hot topic and will continue to influence decision making in large corporations when leveraged intelligently. We are pioneering the use of AI in generating insights from consumer surveys directly obtained through the scanning of product packs. In the near future we will also provide predictive algorithms leveraging a combination of sales and market/consumer data for demand prediction as well image recognition for detecting fakes by taking a picture of the product pack.” – Chekkit CEO, Dare Odumade.