Food for a cause
- 500-backed user-led sustainability platform abillion has achieved its US$1 million donation goal early. The target was set to be completed at the end of this year.
- The startup encourages users to post reviews on its app by pledging to donate US$1 for every complete review. Users can decide which partner charities they would like to donate the dollar to, from animal conservation, agriculture, education, and more.
- At US$1 million, abillion has provided financial aid to a total of 84 causes.
- Now, it has set a higher bar for 2022 – to donate over US$1 million in one year alone.
Investing in women
- Farouk Meralli, founder and CEO of mClinica, appeared on a podcast to talk about how gender lens investing can boost products and services aimed at women.
- He shared that the startup’s beneficiaries are largely women. “80% of pharmacy professionals we serve are women,” he said. “Women make up the majority of customers at pharmacies as well.”
- In Southeast Asia where pharmacies are often the first stop for health advice, they become a central point in community health. Farouk believes it is important to build a system that works, especially when the majority of pharmacies in the region are SMEs.
- mClinica connects pharmacies and trains pharmacists to deliver better healthcare. According to Farouk, today, its app SwipeRx is the largest pharmacy application in the region, with 1 in every 3 pharmacists using the app.
- Listen to the full podcast here.
Health at home
- 500-backed digital health startup Prenetics has posted significant revenue growth for the first half of 2021 (1H), up 1,039% year on year. This announcement comes as the startup progresses towards its planned U.S. listing.
- Danny Yeung, Group CEO & co-founder said, “I believe we are just getting started…we have already identified international targets in the area of rapid diagnostics and in digital health which would be highly complementary to our mission of decentralizing healthcare and bringing healthcare closer to millions of people globally.”
- The Circle HealthPod, its pocket-sized, lab-quality rapid testing device for COVID-19 is being further developed to cover more tests such as influenza and STDs.
- In 2022, the startup will launch the Circle ColoClear, a colorectal cancer test, and Circle SnapShot, a user-friendly, at-home blood test.
- Read the full announcement here.
