Saudi tele-health company Cura gets some heavy backing
Start-up has already shown ample proof-ofconcept and has 4,500 doctors signed up
Wa’ed, the entrepreneur funding arm of Saudi Aramco, is one of the investors who turned up for the tele-health start-up Cura’s Series A funding of SR15 million. Cura will provide an online platform for effecting a range of health care services, such as online prescriptions and wellness programmes for issues such as depression and stress.
Another investor who joined the funding round is ELM, which is an active player in the Saudi government and private sectors.
“It’s definitely exciting times for the digital health industry in the region, specially post Covid-19 pandemic,” said Mohammad Zekrallah, co-founder and CTO at Cura, which was the first licensed telemedicine company in the Kingdom. “We have seen tremendous month over month growth during the lockdown and we can’t wait to keep innovating our technology and services to help people in need live their healthiest and most convenient life-style we can possibly offer them.”
Instant consultations
Cura was launched in 2016 by software engineers Wael Kabli and Zekrallah. It thus became the first Saudi-based platform to launch on-demand online health and wellness services,
offering instant consultations with a doctor 24x7.
More than 4,500 doctors are registered in the platform, and Cura assisted around 350,000 users connect to the a professional since 2016, of whom the majority reside in the kingdom. Non- Saudi Arabia based consultations represent 5 per cent of its overall customer base, and the founders plan to undertake an international expansion in the next three- to five years.
“Our investment in Cura comes as recognition to acknowledge the incredible milestones that the founding team was able to achieve,” said Fahad Alidi, Managing Director at Wa’ed.