Overview: Today, we’re going to talk about 54gene - the genomics HealthTech company. We’ll explore the 54gene story across 6 areas:
- African Health care status & context
- 54gene early history
- Fundraising & Growth
- Product & monetization strategy
- Competitive positioning & potential exit options
- Overall outlook.
This episode was recorded on Sep 19, 2021
Companies discussed: 54gene, llumina, African Centre of Excellence for Genomics of Infectious Diseases, Y Combinator (YC), 50 Years, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Gilead, IMS Health, Broad Institute, Novartis, Cathay AfricInvest, Helium Health & mPharma
Business concepts discussed: Genomics, Capacity development / Local knowledge development, Healthcare technology, Health insurance coverage, commercial biobanks & public policy
Conversation highlights:
- (00:54) - Why we’re talking about 54Gene today
- (06:25) - Context on Healthcare and Genomics in Africa
- (27:02) - 54Gene founding and early history
- (34:13) - Fundraising and early growth - Seed, Series A, Series B
- (54:15) - Product and monetization strategy
- (1:11:00) - 54Gene capacity building
- (1:17:00) - Competition in this space, exit opportunities
- (1:30:39) - Olumide’s overall thoughts and outlook
- (1:42:38) - Bankole’s overall thoughts and outlook
- (1:56:03) - Recommendations and small wins
Olumide’s recommendations & small wins:
- Recommendation: Afridigest newsletter (by Emeka Ajene) Awesome and well done. Combines threads from multiple angles. Fabulous.
- Recommendation: Frontier FinTech Newsletter (by Samora Kariouki) So thorough and detailed. Love it.
- Recommendation: Kate Nash - Foundations. So good
- Small win: Galaxy Buds 2 - Small, ANC (Active Noise Cancellation), great battery life, good software controls
- Other content: Boom - Supersonic Passenger Airplanes
Bankole’s recommendations & small wins:
- Recommendation: Slow Down - King Promise, Code Breakers by Walter Isaacson & Sarah Tavel on 20 minute VC
- Small win: Chelsea FC 3-0 W vs Tottenham
- Other content: 54Gene partnership with Illumina & Colonialists are coming for blood - Literally
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