LionPride Investment Holdings, a Section 12J Venture Capital Company, via its LionPride Agility Fund has invested in BusyMed, a South African healthtech start-up.

BusyMed aims to connect consumers directly to pharmacies via a digital platform, giving them access to online consultations, product and medication purchases with fast home delivery. BusyMed was founded on the belief that quality healthcare should be and can be accessible to everyone.

The platform allows for pharmacies to provide real-time stock information, access performance data on best-selling items, manage inventory more effectively and leverage off existing pharmacy and 3rd party delivery solutions.

Furthermore, it facilitates and closes a gap where the end consumer may need to secure doctors consultations and provides an online prescription management service.

Neighbourhood pharmacies are an essential part of the healthcare system and in many cases serve as a primary point of contact for many community healthcare needs.

Customers are looking for convenience and less physical interaction now more than ever, and with growing competition in the retail pharmacy industry, BusyMed enables these businesses to better compete and at the same time better serve their communities.

Mphati Jezile, BusyMed founder, said: “We’re excited about the opportunity this investment provides us. BusyMed aims at improving pharmacies’ engagement with their communities through technology and by doing so brings access to quality healthcare into everyone’s home.”

The investment from LionPride will be used for further platform development and the build out of the customer and revenue base.

Deven Govender, LionPride CEO, said: “The Agility Fund is an impact investment fund that invests in ventures that have a social benefit whilst providing a potentially high yielding investment for our investors. It’s great that we can support a young and talented entrepreneur like Mphati in a venture that utilises technology to enable access to healthcare for communtiies across the country. Not only do we see human potential in Mphati and the impact of Busymed in South Africa’s communities, but as a fund manager the investment has to make sense as well, and we believe it does.”

HAVAÍC, an investment and advisory firm that specialises in early-stage, high-growth technology businesses, has assisted BusyMed to raise funds from local VC investor LionPride.

Following HAVAÍC’s first meeting with founder Mphati Jezile, HAVAÍC immediately saw potential in both the founder, who showed his commitment by driving through the night from the Eastern Cape to this meeting in Cape Town, and his start-up, BusyMed.

At the time, BusyMed was pre-revenue and faced a long road to true commercialisation. However, HAVAÍC, seeing the potential to support Busymed, offered to provide Mphati with advisory assistance to help him source the funding he needed to build the business.

Ian Lessem, HAVAÍC’s Managing Partner, said: “We are incredibly excited to have assisted Mphati and BusyMed with concluding the investment and partnership with LionPride. In Mphati you have an entrepreneur who is committed to making a difference in the healthcare sector by adopting technology platforms, and we cannot wait to see BusyMed develop and grow, and are thankful to have been a small part of their exciting journey.”