Waspito is a Cameroonian start-up founded and run by Jean Lobe Lobe, offering an innovative solution for the health sector in Cameroon. Using a mobile application, Waspito enables users to consult and have health products delivered to them.
Jean Lobe Lobe has a degree in applied accounting from Oxford Brooks University and has held a number of positions in various sectors since 2010. He was head of human resources for West Africa at British American Tobacco, manager at Camair-co, banking operator at Union Bank of Cameroon and financial auditor at Audit and accounting corporation (AUDICO).
He left his job in 2016 to devote himself to entrepreneurship. He set up Hepting Holdings Ltd, a company specialising in portfolio management, and then Waspito in 2020, after completing several training courses and certifications. He was inspired to develop Waspito after his father died of a heart attack in Kumba because he couldn’t find a cardiologist. This painful experience prompted him to take up the challenge of tele-medicine, to make healthcare more accessible in a country and continent where it is often difficult to obtain.
After raising an initial $2.7 million in March 2022, the start-up, which has been based in Douala since 2020, has strengthened its presence in Cameroon and set up operations in Côte d’Ivoire. In less than three years, Waspito has attracted 500,000 users and 1,000 doctors, including 800 in Cameroon. The application registers around 100 consultations a day and also runs a social network, the “health Facebook”, where doctors give preventive advice and patients exchange information.
Today, Waspito is targeting the Senegalese market from July 2023 and intends to expand into three or four sub-Saharan African countries by 2025. DR Congo, Nigeria, Kenya and Uganda are its potential targets, but Jean Lobe Lobe is not ruling out the idea of a breakthrough in North Africa.
In 2022, Waspito won first prize at the Pitch Event 2022 Digital Transformation Challenge for Africa, organised by mobility54 and health54 (CFAO) in Paris. This prize enabled Waspito to benefit from an investment of $200,000 to continue its efforts to solve the problem of accessibility to healthcare in Sub-Saharan Africa.
In 2023, the Cameroonian start-up was awarded the prize for the best HealtTech start-up on the African continent at the Afritech awards organised by Viva Technology & IFC.
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