Egyptian Healthtech Rology Set for MENA Expansion After Pre-Series A

Egyptian healthtech Rology has announced the raise of an undisclosed Pre-Series A round that will fuel its ambitious regional expansion plans. The round saw participation from a range of investors, including Egypt Ventures and Dutch-born Sequence Ventures, as well as Waseel ASP and tawaref of KSA. Previous investors such as HIM Angels, AAIC, DAI and Cubit Ventures also participated in the founding of a startup that was launched in 2017 to fill a gap left by the lack of radiologists.

Founded by Amr Abodraia, Moaaz Hossam, Mahmoud Eldefrawy and Bassam Khallaf, Rology ultimately looks to compensate for what the founders see as underdeveloped medical reporting. The startup enhances scan image quality and matches cases from hospitals and radiology centres according to expertise and specialisation. Covering subspecialties breast imaging, cardiovascular radiology, chest radiology, gastrointestinal radiology and musculoskeletal radiology, the platform delivers reports for cold cases within 12 hours and reports for emergency cases within 60 minutes.

Like much of the innovation sweeping through Egypt, the pandemic accelerated Rology’s development and, arguably, it’s role on the healthtech landscape. 

“After the pandemic era, and the rapid increase in the radiology demand globally and in the MEA region, we have the responsibility to improve teleradiology as a real solution for the diagnostic challenges to save lives,” said co-founder Amr Abodraia, who also serves as CEO. “Rology's role became more important in helping patients get an accurate diagnosis quickly. So, we are developing our platform to serve a large number of hospitals and radiology centres either in cities or rural areas with zero setup hassle, as well as to boost radiologists' productivity through our AI radiology.”

MENA’s booming healthtech sector raised an impressive $107 million in investments in 2021, representing a 29% YoY growth in funding. The largest deal came in the form Dubai-based selfologi’s $17.5 million raise, with the majority of the investments as a whole concentrating on pharma marketplaces and digital health platforms. Remote servicing has been the spark for many a healthtech startup and 2021’s venture investments are already looking like they will increase this year. In the Q1 2022, $46.6 million has been invested in MENA healthtechs, a 678% growth from Q1 2021 - though most of that came through Altibbi’s $44 million Series B round. Nevertheless, telemedicine is proving to be an exciting new sub-sector for investors and Rology is now poised to spread its services across the region, though no targets have been disclosed.