Esaal, Egypt’s online health and wellness platform, has raised $1.7M seed funding round to scale its expansion across the MENA region, further invest in product and brand development, and increase talent acquisition.
The round was led by A15 and brings the company’s total investment to date to $3M since its launch in 2018. The firm will also use the funding to solve the rising health needs in one of the world’s most underserved markets in accessing health and wellness services.
According to Fadi Doss, CEO at Esaal, “There are millions more people across an enormous region that would benefit from our fresh approach to holistic health and we are thrilled to be in a position to keep growing and connecting more health professionals with patients in underserved markets.”
The platform offers physical health, mental health and nutrition consultations with health professionals via text, video/voice calls and in-person home visits. Esaal’s comprehensive list of health professionals offer consultations on a broad range of issues including anxiety, physiotherapy, paediatrics, nutrition and many more with various payment options including Fawry, Vodafone cash or credit card.
Since launching, Esaal has aggregated over 350 consultants covering different fields on the platform who have delivered health and wellness services to almost 1 million unique users; ensuring access to a sizable market for the health experts on the platform. In addition to providing services to individuals, Esaal also offers an Employee Wellness Programmes for businesses of all sizes and currently serves more than 5000 employees in a range of industries through partnering with 10 mid-large sized companies and has partnered with a number of NGOs to support wellness-related programs.
Esaal’s services are currently available in 8 countries including Egypt, KSA, Tunisia, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, Palestine and Iraq. The company has registered a 250% Y-o-Y increase in revenue (in 2021) and a 55% jump in users. With support from A15 throughout its operations, the company has remained capital efficient and is targeting further growth in the market
Karim Beshara, Managing Partner at A15 added, “From the moment we started working with the Esaal team, we knew this was a company with the laser focus and vision to create something truly unique and purpose-driven in its market. They have been prudent in the deployment of capital to date, demonstrating outstanding efficiencies in unit economics, which has enabled their expansion ambitions. We are proud to see their growth, and enjoyed building the business with them throughout the last four years. There is so much more to come from Esaal and this sector, and as they continue to scale across the MENA region, it’s exciting to see not just the significant growth and returns, but the difference the team continues to make with the services they are enabling users to access for better health.”
105M people across the MENA region use online services to connect with retailers and professional services every week. With high levels of obesity among adults, particularly in high income countries such as the Gulf Cooperation Council countries (GCC), Esaal recognises a huge gap in a sizable addressable market. Additionally, there’s a low supply of doctors unable to meet rising demand for consultations, low availability of hospital beds and an increasing mental health crisis with 35% on average from MENA populations experiencing frequent stress and 29% suffering from depression. Esaal is focussed on expanding its services so that more people across the MENA region can access better holistic health solutions.
