Dubai: Okadoc, the leading instant doctor appointment booking platform, closed its $10 million Series A round, following a $2.3 million seed round in 2018. The latest fundraising round is the largest heathtech Series A in MENA. The announcement was made in Dubai today at the STEP Conference, the leading tech festival for emerging markets.

A diversified mix of institutional and private investors participated in the Series A, including Abu Dhabi Investment Office (ADIO) and Ithmar Capital Partners.

With this investment, Okadoc will launch telemedicine, enabling doctors to offer remote virtual consultations to their patients. This upcoming service will greatly enhance the patient experience by offering much-needed flexibility and convenience for patients to see their own doctors through a video consultation for follow-up appointments, pre-consultations and second opinions. The offering will also greatly benefit underserved populations with limited access to healthcare.

Okadoc has entered into a strategic partnership with Dubai Healthcare City (DHCC) and has further on-boarded some of the UAE’s leading healthcare providers, such as Medcare, Aster Hospitals, Emirates Healthcare Group, and more. Further, after this rapid expansion in the UAE during the last two years, Okadoc will also expand operations into Saudi Arabia and is planning to enter more GCC countries next year.

In Indonesia, Okadoc has recently launched a tailored version of its platform to tackle local healthcare challenges in the country, where the company has strong roots since setting up an office in Jakarta in 2018. Okadoc has been operating the majority of its technology development from day one in Indonesia, where half of the team is located.

Okadoc’s cloud-based platform is designed to help patients find a doctor according to various parameters including insurance network, location, specialty, language spoken, or gender. Patients can then view real-time doctor availabilities, instantly book appointments, receive reminders, reschedule, cancel or even request earlier availability. Okadoc is free for patients and available across www.okadoc.com or the app for iPhone and Android.

Okadoc also helps doctors, clinics, and hospitals reduce 'no-shows', optimize their bookings, reduce administrative costs, increase operational efficiency and attract and engage new patients.

Fodhil Benturquia, Founder & CEO of Okadoc, said: “Our mission at Okadoc is to build and deploy technologies to improve the healthcare experience for everyone involved. We are fixing the broken patient experience that exists today while at the same time improving operational efficiency for payors and providers.” 

He added: “Okadoc is the only platform in the region that is integrated with most of the international and local hospital information systems (HIS), covering over 60% of doctors in the UAE making us the

only platform that can offer patients the access to doctor schedules in real-time, and to instantly book and manage their appointments. It has also allowed us to reduce no shows by up to 75%.”

“We launched our instant booking feature in the UAE a year ago, and in this short time we have managed to on-board over 1,000 bookable doctors from 70 specialties in healthcare facilities across all seven emirates,” said Benturquia.

“We wanted to continue this great momentum, expand in other markets and introduce new functions, so we felt that the time is right to raise more capital to enable us to do so,” he added.

Ray Dargham, CEO of STEP, said: “Congrats to the Okadoc team on such a monumental Series A funding round that will launch telemedicine across the UAE. This is a strong testament to the ambitious and driven start-up talent across the Middle East. As the home to the region’s top entrepreneurs, we are really thrilled to have this great news announced at STEP 2020.”

Founded in 2018 by Fodhil Benturquia, Okadoc aims to improve the healthcare experience by seamlessly connecting patients with healthcare providers and doctors. In 2019, Okadoc was named ‘Start-up of the Year’ by Arabian Business and ‘Healthcare Innovator of the Year’ at the Entrepreneur Magazine’s Agility Awards. Also last year, Okadoc was chosen to participate in Hub71's Incentive Program, a Mubadala-led initiative.

© Press Release 2020

Disclaimer: The contents of this press release was provided from an external third party provider. This website is not responsible for, and does not control, such external content. This content is provided on an “as is” and “as available” basis and has not been edited in any way. Neither this website nor our affiliates guarantee the accuracy of or endorse the views or opinions expressed in this press release.

The press release is provided for informational purposes only. The content does not provide tax, legal or investment advice or opinion regarding the suitability, value or profitability of any particular security, portfolio or investment strategy. Neither this website nor our affiliates shall be liable for any errors or inaccuracies in the content, or for any actions taken by you in reliance thereon. You expressly agree that your use of the information within this article is at your sole risk.

To the fullest extent permitted by applicable law, this website, its parent company, its subsidiaries, its affiliates and the respective shareholders, directors, officers, employees, agents, advertisers, content providers and licensors will not be liable (jointly or severally) to you for any direct, indirect, consequential, special, incidental, punitive or exemplary damages, including without limitation, lost profits, lost savings and lost revenues, whether in negligence, tort, contract or any other theory of liability, even if the parties have been advised of the possibility or could have foreseen any such damages.