Women’s healthcare startup planning Saudi expansion

JEDDAH: Nabta Health, a UAE-based startup dedicated to supporting women’s health, is planning to expand into Saudi Arabia this year, amid growing demand for its services in the Kingdom. 

The company offers personalized healthcare to women in emerging markets. Its platform allows users to diagnose conditions at home using an Al-powered health assistant.

“We have 225,000 women every month across the MENA who interact with our platform, and Saudi Arabia is the fastest-growing market,” Sophie Smith, CEO and co-founder of Nabta Health, told Arab News.

“Currently, we are speaking to a number of high-profile doctors and scientists for potential collaboration opportunities both in clinical research and piloting our model of care,” she added.

The startup is focused on expanding across the Middle East, then Africa and Asia, with Saudi Arabia currently in its sights.

“Saudi Arabia is a really interesting market for us for many reasons. The healthcare ecosystem is growing very fast, the compound growth rate is said to be at 7 percent by 2024,” Smith said.

She noted that the company has also initiated contact with Saudi authorities to help work with the new Accountable Care Organisations, which are being set up as part of the Vision 2030 goals to develop the Kingdom's healthcare sector.

Saudi Arabia’s healthcare transformation plan seems akin to what NHS England has built, Smith said. “It will look like the next generation NHS without its legacy infrastructure problems… and it is very interesting to see.” Launched in March 2017, the startup spent the first three and half years at the Research and Development phase, before recently beginning to commercialize the platform.

“We first raised a seed-round for $500,000 to develop the platform and now we are raising a seed-plus to commercialize it,” she said. 

“And before we launch in Saudi Arabia, we will raise first a Series A growth round.”