Lagos-based venture firm Ingressive Capital has led a $1.1M seed funding round for SehaTech, an Egyptian health insurance technology company. The deal, which also included participation from A15, Beltone Venture Capital, and Plus VC, is the latest indication of a deliberate push by Nigerian VCs into North Africa as they seek to diversify away from a volatile home market.
The investment will be used to expand SehaTech’s team, enhance its AI-powered platform, and scale its operations in Egypt and the wider region.
Founded by Mohamed El-Shabrawy, Mostafa Tarek, and Omar Shawky, SehaTech operates an integrated platform that automates health insurance management. The company aims to simplify workflows, reduce friction between insurance companies and healthcare providers, and mitigate fraud.
“Our goal is not only to address operational inefficiencies in healthcare insurance processing, but also to expand access to high-quality healthcare coverage,” said Mohamed El-Shabrawy, founder and CEO of SehaTech.
This investment continues Ingressive Capital’s hunt for startups outside Nigeria this year. In June, the firm, long considered a key backer of the Nigerian ecosystem, led a $600,000 extension round for Nowlun, a Cairo-based digital freight startup.
Maya Horgan-Famodu, founder and Managing Partner at Ingressive Capital, described SehaTech’s mission as “critical in solving a problem at the heart of healthcare delivery.” This strategic focus on essential sectors in markets outside Nigeria highlights a significant geographical pivot.
This northward capital flow is being driven by severe economic headwinds in Nigeria. The country, which has slipped from Africa’s second to its fourth-largest economy, is grappling with the fallout from major economic reforms, including the removal of fuel subsidies and the liberalization of its foreign exchange market.
The results have been challenging for local investors. In 2024, Nigeria’s currency, the naira, lost over 40% of its value against the US dollar, and inflation surged to a 28-year high of 34.8%. For VCs who raise funds in dollars but invest in naira-earning startups, this volatility has dramatically increased operational costs for their portfolio companies and eroded the potential value of future exits.
While the Nigerian government maintains that the economy has “exited its phase of economic instability” and is rebounding, the on-the-ground reality for investors is one of heightened risk, prompting a search for more stable, high-growth alternatives.
This diversification is not limited to Egypt. Ingressive Capital also recently participated in a $1.8M pre-seed round for REasy, a Cameroon-based B2B payments platform focused on Francophone Africa. This move, combined with the Egyptian deals, underscores a clear pan-African strategy aimed at spreading risk and capturing growth across the continent’s diverse economic blocs.