Kera Health: Digitizing Senegal’s Health System
- a n
- Nov 3
- 6 min read
Introduction
Kera Health is a fast-growing digital health startup based in Dakar, Senegal. Launched in the early 2020s, the company aims to transform how healthcare is delivered and accessed across West Africa by building an integrated digital ecosystem connecting clinics, laboratories, pharmacies, patients, and insurers. A trio of seasoned professionals founded it—AI researcher Dr. Moustapha Cissé, telecom executive Papa Sow, and health insurance expert Hosam Mattar—each bringing decades of experience in technology, public health, and operations. At its core, Kera Health is an AI-powered platform designed to digitize medical records, streamline diagnostics and referrals, enable seamless insurance claims, and make healthcare more efficient and inclusive.
The idea behind Kera Health was not born from theory alone. Instead, it was catalyzed by deeply personal and practical concerns. Dr. Cissé’s own experience with a misdiagnosis highlighted a painful truth: fragmented healthcare systems in Africa frequently lead to medical errors, inefficiencies, and unnecessary suffering. Kera Health was conceived as a solution to these challenges—not only as a data aggregator or digital tool, but as a new infrastructure for healthcare in Africa. Since its inception, the startup has drawn attention for its ambitious model and for tackling persistent bottlenecks in Senegal’s health system. With a population underserved by existing healthcare capacity, Kera has rapidly gained traction, recently securing a $10 million investment from the International Finance Corporation (IFC) to expand its reach across Senegal and beyond.
Why Kera Health Matters
Severe medical shortages: Senegal and many African countries face doctor-to-patient ratios well below global standards. Some areas have fewer than one physician per 10,000 people.
Data fragmentation: Health records are typically stored in disconnected paper files, leading to redundant tests, delays in diagnosis, and frequent errors.
Growing burden on health infrastructure: With Africa’s population projected to double by 2050, traditional systems will not be able to scale without digital support.
Underserved populations: Informal workers and women often lack insurance, stable care providers, or access to preventive services. Kera specifically targets these groups through inclusive insurance offerings.
Rising digital adoption: Mobile penetration and internet access are rapidly growing in Senegal, offering an opportunity to introduce scalable, tech-based health services.
Public sector alignment: Senegal’s Ministry of Health passed a national digital health strategy in 2025. Kera’s model fits directly into that strategic vision.
Validation from global partners: IFC’s investment and advisory backing signal international recognition of Kera’s scalability, governance, and alignment with global best practices.
Inception and Development
Kera Health was officially founded around 2023 in Dakar by three co-founders with highly complementary expertise. Dr. Moustapha Cissé, the CEO, is widely regarded as one of Africa’s foremost voices in artificial intelligence. He previously served as the head of Google’s AI research center in Ghana and founded the African Masters in Machine Intelligence (AMMI), a continental training initiative that has produced dozens of machine learning professionals. His personal experience of being misdiagnosed due to a lack of coordinated patient data galvanized his belief that AI and digital systems could radically improve care outcomes.
Papa Sow, Kera’s COO, brought operational expertise from his time as CEO of MTN Guinea, one of West Africa’s leading telecom providers. Hosam Mattar, the company’s Chief Medical Officer, was previously a senior executive at AXA Africa, where he developed health financing models for underserved populations. Together, the trio represents a blend of technological innovation, strategic health design, and enterprise scaling.
Timeline of key developments:
2023: Kera enters a pilot-phase partnership with the IFC. The goal was to assess feasibility and align the platform with international standards for data privacy, EHR interoperability, and inclusive health coverage.
2024: The company pilots the platform in a select group of clinics and pharmacies in Senegal, refining features like automated prescription tracking, AI diagnostics, and insurance processing.
2025: Kera secures a $10 million investment from IFC to expand its digital infrastructure, extend platform access across Senegal, and lay the foundation for regional growth in WAEMU member states.
Throughout its early development, Kera emphasized building a modular, cloud-native platform that could function in resource-constrained settings—offline-first capability, low-bandwidth optimization, and mobile compatibility were design priorities from the start.
Impact & Importance
Continuity of Care: Kera’s digital patient records reduce duplication and improve diagnosis accuracy by enabling providers to view a complete medical history across multiple providers and time points.
Error Reduction: Features like automatic flagging of drug interactions, dosage checks, and AI-powered diagnostic support decrease the risk of preventable medical errors.
Efficiency Gains: Clinics using the platform report faster intake, more accurate referrals, and lower administrative overhead, which in turn allows providers to see more patients per day.
Inclusion: Kera’s insurance modules target underserved demographics such as informal sector workers and women, many of whom are uninsured or underinsured.
Financial Access: Streamlined insurance claims and reimbursement reduce costs and waiting periods for patients and pharmacies alike.
Data-Driven Policy Support: Health ministries can use anonymized, aggregated data from Kera’s platform to track disease patterns, monitor interventions, and plan public health responses more effectively.
Technology Transfer: The company’s links with AMMI and other African AI networks are helping train and retain tech talent in West Africa, addressing regional skills shortages.
Challenges & Limitations
Data Governance: Senegal’s digital health law is still evolving, and Kera must operate in an environment with limited regulatory clarity around privacy and cross-border data use.
Infrastructure Gaps: Many health facilities lack reliable electricity, internet connectivity, or digital literacy, especially outside major urban areas.
Adoption Resistance: Convincing clinics and providers to shift from paper-based workflows to digital systems requires long-term training, incentives, and change management.
Scaling Complexity: Each WAEMU country has different administrative and health system requirements. Kera will need to localize operations, form new partnerships, and adapt interfaces in multiple languages.
Equity Risks: Without inclusive design and outreach, digital systems could widen rather than bridge health gaps, particularly in rural or marginalized communities.
Strategic Outlook & Opportunities
Kera Health has charted a deliberate and scalable roadmap for growth over the next 3–5 years. Its immediate priority is consolidating its presence in Senegal by onboarding more public and private healthcare providers, laboratories, pharmacies, and insurers. The $10 million in funding secured from IFC will be used to strengthen cloud infrastructure, expand engineering and support teams, and deepen integrations across the health ecosystem.
Regionally, Kera is preparing for entry into neighboring WAEMU countries such as Côte d’Ivoire, Burkina Faso, and Mali, where similar challenges in data fragmentation and low insurance coverage exist. Its platform is already multilingual and modular, and the team is designing country-specific onboarding flows and partnerships to navigate different health financing schemes.
In terms of innovation, Kera plans to roll out additional AI features, such as population risk scoring, referral automation, and predictive disease modeling. These features will be especially valuable for national health authorities interested in early warning systems and targeted intervention. There’s also potential for the company to introduce mobile patient apps that empower users to view health histories, receive reminders, and schedule appointments, similar to mHealth platforms in East Africa.
The broader opportunity lies in serving as a policy and technology partner to governments, donors, and development agencies. With its compliance to international standards like GDPR and HIPAA, Kera is already a preferred partner for institutions looking to modernize African healthcare systems without compromising data security or clinical accuracy.
Conclusions
Kera Health is more than a healthtech startup. It is a platform for systemic transformation. At a time when West African countries face overlapping challenges of medical workforce shortages, underfunded health systems, and rising demand for care, Kera offers a timely and tech-forward solution. Its founding team has blended world-class expertise with deep regional insight, and its early validation from institutions like IFC underscores its credibility and potential for scale.
What distinguishes Kera is its commitment to equity—both in the populations it serves and the partnerships it builds. From targeting informal workers to embedding AI in patient safety, the company is designing for inclusion, not just efficiency. As the digital health landscape evolves across Africa, Kera is well-positioned to lead the Francophone sector and model what locally-rooted, globally-minded innovation can achieve. If it can sustain adoption, navigate policy complexity, and maintain affordability, Kera Health could not only change healthcare in Senegal—it could reshape it across the continent.
