Reliance Health bets subscription insurance, not telemedicine, can fix Nigerian healthcare

Nigerian digital healthcare provider offering subscription health insurance (Reliance HMO), telemedicine, drug delivery, and proprietary and partner clinics for individuals and businesses.

That emerging-market patients need a bundle — insurance, telemedicine, clinics and drug delivery in one subscription — not a standalone doctor-in-your-pocket app.

$40M Series B (Feb 2022) led by General Atlantic, bringing total funding to $48M across a $2M post-YC seed (2017) and $6M Series A (Jan 2020)

Femi Kuti, Opeyemi Olumekun and Matthew Mayaki launched telemedicine app Kangpe in 2015 with a 'doctor in your pocket' idea, after going through Y Combinator. A year in they saw the gap: a chat that ended with a recommendation for an x-ray, surgery or specialist left patients with nowhere to continue the journey. They made a soft pivot to Reliance Health — an integrated provider that could manage care end to end through subscriptions.

Reliance Health sells Reliance HMO plans from ₦3,500 (~$7) to ₦148,500 (~$297) on monthly, quarterly or yearly terms, bundled with telemedicine, drug delivery and its own two Lagos clinics, plus employer plans. By February 2022 it served 200,000+ individuals and 600 business customers including Beiersdorf's Nivea, Jumia and PwC, claiming 3.5x average year-over-year revenue growth since 2016. It raised a $2M seed after Y Combinator in 2017 and a $6M Series A in January 2020, then closed a $40M Series B led by General Atlantic — the firm's first technology investment in Africa and the largest round in African healthtech at the time — with Partech, Picus Capital, Tencent Exploration, Asia Africa Investment and Consulting, P1 Ventures, Laerdal Million Lives Fund and M3 joining, taking total funding to $48M.

Still scaling: the 2022 round funded two more clinics in Abuja and Port Harcourt, an Egypt entry and diaspora-facing products; no later valuation or exit has been disclosed.

Telemedicine alone could not complete a care journey in Nigeria; insurance plus clinics plus delivery closed the loop and made subscriptions sticky.

A single-fee model simplified the buyer decision for individuals and employers, converting healthcare into a monthly subscription rather than an emergency expense.

Business plans for companies like Nivea, Jumia and PwC gave Reliance a high-retention anchor customer base.

The scale of the underserved Nigerian market and proven revenue growth made Reliance General Atlantic's first African technology bet — the largest healthtech round on the continent at the time.

A feature can't fix a broken system: Reliance won by making telemedicine one layer of an integrated subscription with insurance, clinics and delivery — monetizing the whole care journey.

As of February 2022, Reliance Health operates an integrated subscription healthcare platform in Nigeria with 200,000+ individuals and 600 companies served, two proprietary Lagos clinics, telemedicine, drug delivery and Reliance HMO plans from about $7 to $297. Its $40M Series B, led by General Atlantic and totaling $48M in funding, was earmarked for two additional clinics in Abuja and Port Harcourt, an Egypt launch planned for mid-2022, diaspora-focused products and hiring. No later valuation, revenue or exit figures have been disclosed.