Alan, the French medical insurance firm with footballer Kylian Mbappé as an investor, right now introduced the completion of its acquisition of Tanel, a Senegal-based digital well being firm based in 2021 by Mouhamed Ndoye and Makhtar Diop.
The transaction additionally offers an exit for Tanel’s founders and buyers, together with Ventures Platform and AAIC Funding.
Tanel was launched in 2021 to handle the problem of managing worker well being protection by means of fragmented, largely paper-based programs. Right now, Tanel offers companies with digital instruments to handle worker well being protection whereas giving workers and people easier entry to care and higher visibility over their protection. Working throughout Senegal and Côte d’Ivoire, the corporate serves roughly 70,000 members throughout greater than 400 corporations and connects customers to a community of over 1,200 pharmacies and healthcare suppliers.
Ventures Platform spoke with Ndoye and Diop concerning the five-year journey that introduced Tanel so far. They replicate on distinguishing market alerts from noise, staying anchored to their mission as the corporate developed, recognising when becoming a member of forces with a bigger firm may speed up that mission, and what constructing for longevity appears to be like like in a market with no established playbook.
You selected to construct Tanel from Senegal, in a sector as advanced as healthcare and throughout markets that don’t all the time obtain the identical consideration as Anglophone Africa. How did being near the market form your understanding of the issues price fixing, and affect the way in which you selected to construct for them?
Being near the market was important to our success, however not in the way in which folks may anticipate. Sure, we discovered from what was occurring in Anglophone Africa: Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa, the place the well being tech ecosystem is extra mature. However proximity to Senegal taught us one thing extra priceless: the precise constraints of Francophone African markets.
We noticed firsthand why sure options labored elsewhere and failed right here. We understood that belief wasn’t constructed by means of advertising, however by means of relationships. We discovered that digital fee adoption was slower, so we needed to design otherwise. We noticed that casual employment was the norm, not the exception, which formed how we considered worker advantages from day one.
However right here’s what being on the bottom actually gave us: humility. We couldn’t faux to know the market from a spreadsheet or a quarterly go to. We needed to sit in sizzling places of work with damaged followers and really perceive what pharmacy homeowners wanted, what employers confronted, what sufferers may afford. That closeness compelled us to construct one thing actual, not one thing theoretical.
Tanel developed considerably from the place it started. Trying again, how did you distinguish between a sign that the market was asking you to alter and the noise that each younger firm encounters?
We tried 5 totally different enterprise fashions: main care, prescription supply, pharmacy software program, non-pharmaceutical distribution, and eventually worker well being advantages. Every one felt like the reply on the time. Every one failed in ways in which taught us one thing essential.
The sign versus noise distinction got here down to at least one factor: unit economics. When our pharmacy software program enterprise wasn’t working, we had knowledge. When prescription supply didn’t scale, the numbers instructed us why. We refused to disregard the maths, even when the story was compelling.
What we really refused to compromise on was the mission itself: making healthcare entry easy and inexpensive in Africa. We may change the product, the mannequin, the shopper. However we couldn’t compromise on unit economics as a result of that decided whether or not the answer was truly scalable or only a subsidy masquerading as a enterprise.
The breakthrough got here after we realised: employers don’t simply want well being protection, they want companions who hold their workers and their households wholesome.
Each pivot was painful, however every one was non-negotiable. We both modified or we died.
What did constructing Tanel educate you about creating infrastructure in markets the place the programs round you’re nonetheless being constructed?
We noticed it as a clean canvas, which sounds romantic till you realise there aren’t any guardrails. No playbook. No precedent.
The explanation sure healthcare alternatives keep untouched in rising markets isn’t as a result of they’re unimaginable. It’s as a result of they require persistence, capital, and focus – three issues most startups don’t have. A pharmacy software program firm can fail in 18 months and pivot. Constructing healthcare infrastructure can take 5 years earlier than you see traction.
What we discovered the exhausting means is you could’t optimise for velocity in healthcare. You must optimise for belief. That meant:
-
Regulators in Senegal had by no means seen an organization like us. We needed to educate them, not struggle them.
-
Employers thought medical insurance was a commodity. We needed to present them it could possibly be strategic.
-
Sufferers had been burned earlier than. We needed to constantly ship, not simply promise.
We have been grateful for affected person buyers and prospects who allow us to construct the core product with out demanding income targets each quarter. That persistence created house for relationships to type, belief to construct, and programs to evolve.
The important thing perception: you’re not simply constructing an organization, you’re constructing infrastructure that the market didn’t comprehend it wanted.
Alan first invested in Tanel in 2024. As the connection developed, when did you start to see that becoming a member of forces may speed up what you have been constructing? What made Alan the suitable companion, and what did you need to protect as you thought-about this subsequent chapter?
We didn’t consciously suppose “we’re constructing for acquisition”. That will have been a mistake. We have been constructing to unravel an issue. However by 2023, one thing shifted.
Alan invested in us throughout our seed spherical in 2024 and each dialog bolstered the identical perception: Alan had developed from being a conventional well being insurer into one thing extra fascinating. A well being prevention firm. That aligned completely with what we have been making an attempt to do.
What modified in our considering: we realised we didn’t have to do the whole lot ourselves. Alan had distribution, capital, regulatory relationships, and know-how infrastructure. What they wanted was our understanding of African markets and our confirmed capacity to construct medical insurance merchandise that work in rising markets.
This realisation modified which issues we targeted on. We doubled down on product-market slot in Senegal and Côte d’Ivoire. We didn’t attempt to broaden to fifteen nations concurrently. We didn’t attempt to construct each doable well being service. We targeted.
What didn’t change: our dedication to unit economics, to our mission, and to understanding our buyer deeply. These weren’t compromises we made for Alan. These have been the inspiration of why Alan was within the first place.
The choice to companion with Alan wasn’t about giving up management. It was about recognising that constructing healthcare infrastructure at scale requires assets and networks {that a} startup, nonetheless nice, can’t construct alone.
Now that Tanel is coming into a brand new chapter with Alan, what do you perceive about constructing for longevity that you simply didn’t perceive whenever you began, and what would you inform an African founder who desires to construct one thing that may ultimately create choices past a fundraising spherical?
After we began Tanel, we thought longevity was about having the very best thought and executing it completely. We discovered it’s about one thing extra elementary: refusing to die and staying curious.
In our first 5 years, we confronted moments the place Tanel in all probability ought to have shut down. The pharmacy software program enterprise wasn’t working. Distribution was exhausting. Fundraising was exhausting. However we saved going. Not as a result of we have been cussed, however as a result of each failure taught us one thing.
We’d inform African founders three issues:
First: Endurance compounds greater than most individuals realise. Folks overestimate what they’ll construct in a single 12 months and underestimate what they’ll construct in ten years. We spent three years on enterprise fashions that didn’t work. These years felt like failure. However they created the inspiration for the fashions that did.
Second: By no means let your organization die. There’s a distinction between an organization that’s struggling and an organization that’s useless. A struggling firm can pivot, adapt, and discover traction. A useless firm can’t. We selected to remain alive even after we didn’t know what we have been doing.
Third: Ship month-to-month investor updates. As a founder, you might want to have one thing preserving you accountable and we discovered that the month-to-month investor replace was what we would have liked to fulfil that want whereas additionally giving us a chance to put in writing concerning the very enterprise we have been constructing.
Our integration with Alan remains to be early, however long-term constructing requires three issues: persistence (don’t rush), focus (don’t attempt to do the whole lot), and assets (you want capital and expertise). For African founders, the addition is that this: keep curious. After we began, we genuinely didn’t know what we have been doing. We nonetheless don’t. However that curiosity, that willingness to be taught, to speak to prospects, to let the market educate us, that’s what saved us constructing.
Construct one thing actual. It would take longer than you anticipate. However it creates choices.
This interview was first revealed by Ventures Platform.
