Nigeria Added 65 Healthtech Startups After COVID-19, 65% Growth in Sector — Report

Nigeria’s healthtech ecosystem added 65 startups between 2020 and 2025, representing roughly 65% growth in startup activity and bringing the total active count to 128, according to the State of Healthtech in Nigeria 2026 report.

The report, curated by TechCabal Insights, Digital Health Nigeria, and the Clinton Health Access Initiative, found that 17 healthtech startups launched in 2020 alone — the highest single-year figure recorded in the ecosystem. That figure represents more than half of the 103 startups launched in the 15 years before the pandemic.

“When we started in 2017, telemedicine was still poorly understood, infrastructure was limited, there were no cohesive policies or guidelines, and trust in digital healthcare was low,” Funmi Adewara, Founder and CEO of Mobihealth, told TechCabal. “We had to educate patients, regulators, partners, and even healthcare professionals.”

Founders described the COVID-19 pandemic as the moment digital healthcare became commercially viable. Lockdown restrictions made hospital visits difficult, and services such as remote consultations, digital prescriptions, and medication delivery saw a surge in demand.

“Before COVID, healthtech was a nice-to-have,” Rest Essence, co-founder of MedWaka, told TechCabal. “But post-COVID, it became a must-have. You could no longer step outside. So, the ecosystem completely changed.”

Funding into Nigeria’s healthtech sector grew from approximately $5.5 million in 2019 to nearly $55 million in 2023 before falling by more than 67% to about $18 million in 2024 and roughly $3 million in 2025.

The report identified 40 inactive healthtech startups in Nigeria, with 97% of closures affecting companies founded before the pandemic. Among the notable failures were Healthlane and genomics startup 54gene, which raised approximately $45 million before shutting down in 2023.

Telehealth has the highest number of startups in the ecosystem but ranks sixth in total funding attracted. Kola Aina, founding partner at Ventures Platform, said capital follows the depth of the problem being solved, not the number of startups in a subsector.

Sources: TechCabal