Viaka Newsletter: Using AI to solve the medical supply chain -- KAJ Medical!
This week, we’re featuring KAJ Medical!
Key Leadership:
CEO: Abdoulaye Mouflet
COO: Ben Attal
Advisor: John Nnamchi
What is KAJ Medical and how/why did it come to life?
KAJ Medical is a fintech company combining a unique trade financing product with an AI-powered platform to address financing gaps, automate due diligence and increase the efficiency of procurement and fulfillment in the medical supply chain. Through these solutions KAJ Medical has been able to help manufacturers and distributors deliver 36 million medical devices across 3 countries, while generating $3.7M in Trade Finance revenue (GMV) with $580K adjusted Gross Profit.
What is your personal story and relation to the problem (alongside your founders)
Our co-founders gained direct experience with the medical device supply chain while working at a traditional medical device company involved in distribution and manufacturing. They experienced inefficiencies within the supply chain, and a common issue leading to failed transactions was the lack of financing, combined with incompatibilities in incoterms and payments terms, caused either by companies’ desires, or countries’ exchange controls. International transactions posed challenges in building trust between manufacturers and distributors, resulting in difficult negotiations. Finally, many stakeholders in the medical device industry were SMEs facing significant obstacles in accessing financing. This was mainly because banks and traditional trade financing firms often lacked an understanding of the intricacies of medical devices and tended to finance simpler projects instead.
What market are you attacking? Are you adding on or trying to replace current offerings?
We are attacking the medical device space’s trade financing market. We will primarily be adding on to the current market, as it is poorly adapted to the challenges faced by a majority of stakeholders in the space. Firstly, SME’s have very little access to financing, and they make up a vast majority of businesses in the medical device supply chain. This leads to significant barriers to growth, and consistent cash flow concerns. For many other businesses, traditional trade financing does not allow them to overcome payment term gaps, incoterm incompatibilities and exchange controls that impose limitations on each of these. We will be looking to provide trade financing solutions to companies and for deals that would otherwise not have been able to use traditional equivalents, while replacing less adapted solutions in other scenarios as well.
What are you looking for from the Viaka community?
We are interested in joining Viaka in order to be a part of a community of investors and entrepreneurs focused on developing and improving quality of business and life in the MENA region. A lot of the work we have done has been in North Africa and the Middle East, and our solutions are most impactful for companies seeking trade financing that does not require interest to be charged. We are currently looking to raise a seed round of funding to both unlock a number of debt funding sources, including 0-interest government funding, which will allow us to significantly increase dealflow, as well as allow us to accelerate our technological development and improve the automation of our trade financing solution, while also creating SAAS upsell opportunities.
Where will that take you?
This fundraise will have a tremendous impact on our growth. First, it will allow us to unlock $4-8M of good debt funding, which will significantly increase our capacity to take on the pipeline which we have created. It will also allow us to invest in our team, with a heavy emphasis on the technology team; increasing the total headcount to 25. These will permit the completion of our first two SAAS modules, and complete the automated trade financing platform. In the base case, this will allow us to achieve 2.9M Gross profit in 2024, of which nearly half a million from SAAS sales. Ultimately, all of these will lead to a Series A by EOY 2024.
Exciting Announcements From Our Network
Below is a list of updates, wins, and asks emanating from members of the Viaka Network in the “West.”
Women of MENA in Technology are hosting an event in Montreal! This event is themed “Paths to Success” and includes success stories of women of MENA in tech.
Startup Tunisia are hosting an E-Pitch session with 5 promising startups! Click here for more.
Viaka Members are speaking at London EdTech Week! Check out this EdTech forum on the state of EdTech in MENA.
If you’re a member of our Network and would like to share your own update next week, email info.viaka@gmail.com or submit an update via this form.
Reads of the Week
Viaka has launched a Network Reading List, where Network members are encouraged to submit media suggestions of their own.
McKinsey highlights Fintech in the MENA region.
Sturgeon Capital writes about emerging markets in VC.
MEVP give their outlook on the past 18 months.
Check out Viaka’s full reading list here.
Weekly News Digest
Check out our weekly digest — we provide news from all across the MENA startup ecosystem, every single Friday. Be sure to follow our LinkedIn and Twitter for more.
That’s it for this week. Thank you! 👋
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