Alain Nteff
Cameroonian mobile maternal engagement startup GiftedMom was launched in Nigeria, in the first step of its pan-African expansion plans.
Launched in 2013, GiftedMom provides an SMS platform for maternal engagement, which sends automate weekly stage-based and customized information and reminders to pregnant women and new mothers on when to go for their antenatal care or take their baby for vaccination.
The service was initially launched in Cameroon by co-founders Alain Nteff – a computer engineer – and medical doctor Conrad Tankou, in a bid to stem the country’s growing maternal mortality rates.
With registrations quickly surpassing 4,000 women in Cameroon alone, and having raised over US$120,000 in funding, the startup has begun its pan-African expansion by launching in Nigeria.
Expectant and new mothers in Nigeria can now subscribe to the service by sending an SMS with the word MOM to 30812, to start receiving updates. GiftedMom provides a two-way SMS service, so a woman with distress can also text MOM followed by her health concern to 30812 to get instant advice from a medical doctor.
According to Nteff, GiftedMom has the potential to become Africa’s leading maternal information service, due to the personalised, engagement-oriented model the startup is committed to.
“GiftedMom’s goal is to becomes Africa’s leading provider, especially because we are more flexible than the already existing bigger providers,” Nteff told Disrupt Africa.
“We have been able to engage our users with our SMS and included other value-added information, rather than just spamming users with SMSs,” he says. “Making our users love us and building a community of Gifted Mothers is key to us and we believe this is the secret to becoming Africa’s leading provider.”
Investors also seem to see the startup’s potential, and over the last 12 months GiftedMom has secured US$120,000 in investment from a number of sources.
In August this year, GiftedMom won the African Startup Award of the New York Forum on Africa, which came with a grant of EUR50,000 (US$55,527); and the startup has also raised US$50,000 in grants from the likes of the MasterCard Foundation’s Anzisha Prize, among others.
GiftedMom also secured an equity investment of US$20,000 from ALN Ventures; which is supporting the startup’s Nigerian launch.
“It’s so exciting to see GiftedMom moving into Nigeria. The need for better health services, and the consumer opportunity there are gigantic,” says James Loss-Wells of ALN Ventures.
“Northern Nigeria, unto itself, is roughly four times the size of Cameroon in population terms, and in most of that region there are huge obstacles to access to primary care. GiftedMom has the potential to really transform the experience of motherhood in Africa’s most populous nation—and they’re going in with the partnerships, support and networks required to make their Nigeria story work.”
Nteff says the startup’s goal is to help five million women by 2018.
