Egyptian Startup Raises $1.7M Seed Funding

Egyptian health and wellness startup Esaal, has completed the final tranche of its $1.7 million seed funding round, led by A15.

Esaal is one of the leading technology platforms for online health and wellness consultations in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. This funding brings the company’s total investment to date to $3 million since being founded in 2018.

The startup will continue to deploy this tranche of capital to scale its expansion across the MENA region, further invest in product and brand development, and increase talent acquisition.

A15 has been backing Esaal since its inception in 2018. The startup was founded to solve the rising health needs in one of the world’s most underserved markets in accessing health and wellness services. The platform delivers a convenient, frictionless and secure wellness services spanning 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.

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.

Commenting on Esaal’s growth ambitions, Fadi Doss, CEO at Esaal, said that it’s been an incredible journey building a solution that they are passionate about adding that they have a lot planned out in the future.

“We have only scratched the surface in an untapped market and are actively working to secure further capital to fuel our continued growth. Esaal has become a name synonymous with trust, quality and access to health and wellness professionals that can help users obtain better outcomes,” Doss said.

“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,” he added.

The A15 Managing partner recognizes Esaal as a company with laser focus and vision to create something truly unique and outstanding efficiencies in unit economics, which he says 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,” he said.

105 million 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.