Senegal’s sovereign wealth fund-backed investment vehicle, Oyass Capital, has made its first deployment — and the spotlight is on homegrown healthtech.
Eyone Medical, a Dakar-based digital health company, has secured 1.7 billion CFA francs (~$3 million) in fresh capital from the newly operational Oyass Capital fund, in a move signaling a new wave of government-backed support for high-growth startups. The investment was announced at a launch event on Tuesday at the King Fahd Palace Hotel in Dakar, where fund managers and government officials convened with entrepreneurs to mark the milestone.
The funding is part of a broader 2.7 billion CFA francs ($4.4 million) tranche disbursed to two local SMEs: Eyone Medical and agri-food producer Dimbaya, which received 1 billion CFA francs ($1.65 million). The investments are the first to be made by Oyass Capital, a 52 billion CFA franc ($89 million) SME-focused private equity fund sponsored by the Senegalese Sovereign Strategic Investment Fund (FONSIS).
“Oyass Capital is designed to back national champions in strategic sectors and give local SMEs the kind of catalytic capital they’ve traditionally lacked,” said Jamal Abisourour, President of the Oyass Capital Fund, at the event. “Eyone and Dimbaya are exactly the kind of innovative companies that can anchor a more resilient, vertically integrated economy.”
What is Oyass Capital?
Oyass Capital was launched in January 2024 with a target size of 50 billion CFA francs ($89 million), backed initially by FONSIS with capital contributions from the German development bank KfW, the World Bank, and the State of Senegal. The remaining 15 billion CFA francs (~$26 million) is being raised from private investors and impact funds.
Following an international tender, fund management duties were awarded to SEAF (Small Enterprise Assistance Funds), a U.S.-based private equity firm with a track record spanning 38 active funds and over 400 early-stage investments globally. Oyass Capital focuses on equity and quasi-equity investments into high-potential SMEs across sectors such as health, agri-processing, digital technology, and infrastructure.
Eyone Medical: Digitising Health Records for Africa
Founded in 2015 by Henri Ousmane Gueye and John Diatta, Eyone Medical develops interoperable software solutions that allow hospitals and clinics to digitize, centralize, and share patient records. Its flagship product, Dossier Patient Unique Partagé (Shared Patient Record), is already in use across healthcare institutions in Senegal and has begun expanding into Mali, Côte d’Ivoire, Cameroon, Gabon, and even France.
Eyone claims over 60 clients, including Senegalese telecoms giant Sonatel, which in 2024 led a $1 million round into the company through its Venture Innovation Fund (VIF), alongside BICIS, the Senegalese affiliate of BNP Paribas.
The company’s technology addresses persistent issues in African healthcare systems, such as disjointed patient records, duplicative testing, and lack of real-time access to clinical data — challenges that increase costs and delay care.
“Patients waste precious time repeating their histories, and doctors operate without complete data,” Gueye said. “We designed Eyone to fix that — to create a single, secure, accessible digital patient profile, no matter where you are.’’
The latest capital injection from Oyass will be used to deepen Eyone’s technical infrastructure, incorporate artificial intelligence tools, and expand sales operations across Francophone West Africa.
Eyone’s funding also reflects a broader public sector push in Francophone Africa to finance tech innovation as a driver of economic inclusion and industrial competitiveness.
In Côte d’Ivoire, for instance, Djamo, a fast-growing neobank for the underbanked, secured 800 million CFA francs ($1.3 million) earlier this year from CDC-CI Capital — a subsidiary of the Ivorian state-owned Caisse des Dépôts et Consignations. The investment is being used to scale Djamo’s virtual card infrastructure and expand its market reach.
Such moves show governments stepping out of their traditional role as regulators and into the role of risk-sharing financiers for digital-era companies — often in partnership with DFIs and private fund managers.
What’s Next for Oyass?
With just under 6% of its total capital deployed so far, Oyass Capital is only beginning its investment journey. According to SEAF, the fund will focus on deploying equity tickets of between 500 million and 2.5 billion CFA francs ($830,000 to $4.1 million) per company, with a 5–7 year horizon and strategic support to help SMEs “graduate” into national and regional champions.
For Eyone, it’s validation — and acceleration.
“We’ve built a business that digitizes care in a way that actually works for African health systems,” Gueye said. “This capital gives us the tools to scale it sustainably, in Senegal and far beyond.”
As Oyass and similar state-supported funds take shape across the continent, Africa’s next wave of tech growth may be as much about sovereign priorities as it is about private capital.