Clafiya

Clafiya is a Nigerian digital primary healthcare company that connects individuals, families and businesses to health practitioners for on-demand, in-person and virtual primary care accessed from mobile phones. Its offering combines offline and online channels: patients can register and book care through a web app or a USSD code (*347*58#), and are matched with the nearest registered health practitioner, nurse or community health worker for home visits, or connected to a doctor by video call. The service has expanded from consultations into an end-to-end primary care clinic covering diagnostic test sample collection at home, prescription and over-the-counter medication delivery, specialist referrals, mental health care, home caregivers and 24/7 urgent doctor calls.

Alongside clinical services, Clafiya markets a Health Savings Account (HSA) product through which users save and spend on health and wellness needs. The company states HSA balances earn 10% interest per annum, do not expire, can be used to pay partner providers, and give access to discounts of up to 30% on partner health and wellness products and services. A Health and Wellness Hub aggregates merchants including hospitals, pharmacies, spas, gyms, mental health providers and skincare services, and the website also promotes a free AI symptom checker. Named service partners include i-Fitness, Khairo Diet Clinic, Blueroomcare, Pharmarun and Famasi Africa, while institutional partners cited include Google, Norrsken, the World Bank and Novartis.

Founding story

Founder and CEO Jennie Nwokoye, a systems engineer with prior experience at Deloitte and AWS, was motivated by nearly losing a sibling to inefficiencies in the U.S. healthcare system as a teenager, and later observed similar problems of fragmented processes, poor information and high costs while visiting Nigeria from 2016. She founded Clafiya to widen access to primary healthcare, initially aiming to bring care to people who preferred to avoid hospitals, and to create work for locally based nurses, typically women, who make house calls within their own communities.

Business model

Clafiya sells healthcare services directly to consumers and to businesses that use it to provide health coverage for employees, and earns shared profit from the pharmacies, health centres, wellness providers and HMOs it partners with. It has shifted its consumer payment model from subscriptions to pay-on-demand: it previously offered a Pay As You Go option at ₦5,000 plus quarterly individual (₦13,000) and family-of-four (₦24,000) plans, and replaced these with the Clafiya Wallet, into which individuals and businesses deposit funds that do not expire, deplete only with use, and earn cash-back rewards on deposits. This wallet concept is presented on the company site as a Health Savings Account paying 10% annual interest and usable at partner providers.

Service fees from individual and business customers, wallet/HSA deposits spent on care, and revenue sharing with partner pharmacies, health centres, wellness merchants and HMOs. Earlier revenue channels described include B2C subscriptions, B2B2C subscriptions covering SME employees, and partnerships with HMOs, hospitals and schools.

Traction

At the time of the 2023 pre-seed announcement the company reported 15% month-on-month revenue growth, more than 3,000 individual customers and hundreds of businesses using it for employee health coverage, and a team that had grown to 24 people. Operations covered Lagos and Enugu, with Abuja also cited.

Latest developments

Current company materials centre on the Health Savings Account (10% annual interest, non-expiring funds, up to 30% partner discounts), the Clafiya Care Clinic with home visits, online consultations, diagnostics, medication delivery and specialist and mental health care, a Health and Wellness Hub marketplace of hospitals, pharmacies, spas and gyms, and a free AI symptom checker.