French health insurance unicorn Alan has acquired Dakar-based digital health company Tanel, making its first move into Africa and providing a notable exit for a startup in Francophone Africa’s HealthTech ecosystem.

Financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed. Tanel’s co-founders, Mouhamed Ndoye and Makhtar Diop, will remain with the business and lead both its existing operations and Alan’s expansion across Africa. The entire Tanel team will also remain in place.

Founded in 2021, Tanel has built digital infrastructure that helps businesses manage employee health coverage while giving workers simpler access to healthcare. The company currently covers around 70,000 members across more than 400 companies and connects them with a network of more than 1,200 pharmacies and healthcare providers in Senegal and Côte d’Ivoire.

The acquisition builds on an existing relationship between the two companies. Alan first invested in Tanel as part of its 2024 Seed round, giving the French company exposure to the business two years before moving to acquire it.

Tanel Built Digital Infrastructure for a Fragmented Healthcare Market

Tanel was created to address health insurance and healthcare administration systems that remain fragmented and heavily reliant on paper in parts of West Africa.

Ndoye and Diop initially discovered that building a digital healthcare business required them to develop some of the underlying infrastructure themselves. Their work expanded from pharmacies across a wider portion of the patient journey, eventually creating a platform connecting employers, employees and healthcare providers.

The founders compared the challenge to trying to build cars where roads did not yet exist.

That infrastructure is one of the strategic assets Alan is acquiring. Rather than entering Senegal and Côte d’Ivoire from scratch, the French company gains an established local network spanning employers, healthcare providers, users and regulators.

“Tanel has done the hard work of building relationships with users, companies, healthcare providers and regulators in Senegal and Côte d’Ivoire,” said Jean-Charles Samuelian-Werve, CEO and co-founder of Alan. He said combining that local knowledge with Alan’s technology provides a foundation for further African expansion.

Tanel users will continue working with the existing team while gaining access to additional services, including telehealth and preventive healthcare.

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Alan and Tanel Target One Million African Members by 2030

Alan and Tanel plan to reach more than one million members across Africa by 2030, representing a significant expansion from Tanel’s current base of approximately 70,000.

The initial focus will be on strengthening the company’s position in Senegal and Côte d’Ivoire before moving into Anglophone markets across West and East Africa.

For Alan, the acquisition offers a relatively capital-efficient route into a complex new region. Local healthcare markets can require relationships not only with customers but also insurers, pharmacies, medical providers and regulators, making market entry considerably more difficult than simply launching a digital product in another country.

Tanel provides much of that local foundation, while Alan brings additional technology, capital and experience operating a larger health insurance and care platform.

Alan currently serves more than 1.2 million members across France, Spain, Belgium and Canada, combining health insurance, preventive healthcare and other services within a single platform. The company counts French footballer Kylian Mbappé among its investors and, according to the supplied information, generates more than $927 million in annual recurring revenue in 2026 and is valued at $6.38 billion.

Acquisition Delivers a Rare Francophone African HealthTech Exit

The transaction also represents an exit for Tanel’s investors, including Ventures Platform, AAIC Investment, and angel investors Dr Mussaad M. Al-Razouki, Alyune-Blondin Diop and Charles Slaughter.

For Africa’s venture ecosystem, the significance extends beyond the size of the acquired company. Startup exits remain an important part of developing a functioning venture capital market because they return capital to founders and investors and can provide evidence that companies built in the region are capable of attracting international acquirers.

That is particularly relevant in Francophone Africa, where major technology acquisitions remain comparatively limited.

“African tech still sees too few exits, particularly in Francophone Africa,” said Dotun Olowoporoku, Managing Partner at Ventures Platform, describing the transaction as an important milestone for the ecosystem.

Alan Uses Acquisition as Its Gateway Into Africa

The deal gives Alan a different starting point for its African strategy than building operations independently.

Tanel already has four years of experience navigating healthcare delivery in Senegal and Côte d’Ivoire, while its 400-plus corporate customers and 1,200-provider network give Alan an existing commercial and healthcare footprint.

Keeping the founders and team in place could also preserve the local knowledge that made the acquisition strategically attractive.

The larger test will be whether the companies can replicate that model beyond Francophone West Africa. Expanding into Anglophone West and East African markets would introduce different regulatory environments, healthcare systems and insurance structures.

Still, the acquisition gives Alan an established base from which to attempt that expansion. For Tanel, meanwhile, joining a $6.38 billion European HealthTech company provides access to greater technological and financial resources as it moves from a regional startup toward a broader African platform.

If the companies reach their target of more than one million African members by 2030, the deal could turn what began as Alan’s early Seed investment in a Senegalese startup into the foundation of a much larger pan-African healthcare business.

ChipMango, a semiconductor technology company operating across the US, South Africa, Nigeria, Rwanda and Malta, has raised $1.9 million to expand its engineering workforce, commercial design operations and edge-AI technologies.

Atlantica Ventures led the round, with participation from DFS, Kaleo Ventures, Madica, Trilinear Technologies and Malta Ventures.

The company will use the capital to secure new commercial design engagements, grow its AI-native learning and workforce platform, and advance its intelligent sensor and edge-AI products. It also plans to expand operations across the US, Africa and Europe.

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Linking Training With Commercial Chip Design

Founded by CEO Ola Fadiran and COO Jovan Andjelich, ChipMango develops semiconductor engineers and deploys them on commercial projects for international customers.

Its services cover chip design, verification, semiconductor intellectual property, edge AI and intelligent hardware. The company’s model links industry-aligned education directly with production work, allowing engineers to apply their training to real semiconductor programmes.

Experience gained through those projects can then contribute to ChipMango’s proprietary semiconductor IP and edge-AI development. The company is effectively combining workforce development with an engineering services business, targeting both the talent shortage and growing demand for specialised chip-design capacity.

Fadiran said software alone will not define the next phase of AI. Progress will also depend on the people capable of designing the chips, systems and intelligent hardware behind it, he said, adding that ChipMango wants to make those capabilities accessible to more regions.

Building Semiconductor Capacity Across Africa

ChipMango works with the University of Pretoria’s Carl Emily Fuchs Institute for Microelectronics in South Africa to connect academic education with commercial engineering practices.

It also operates in Nigeria and is developing initiatives in Kigali, Rwanda, focused on semiconductor expertise, workforce training and AI infrastructure.

In Uganda, ChipMango recently launched a three-month Chip Design Pilot Program with Lwera Electronics and Semiconductors. The programme will train 50 university students and introduce them to the knowledge and practical skills required for semiconductor engineering careers.

Atlantica Ventures founding partner Anikó Szigetvári said the chip industry’s central constraint has shifted from capital to skilled personnel. She said ChipMango is converting Africa’s engineering talent into production-grade design capacity that has already been applied to work for global customers.

Industry Partnerships and European Expansion

ChipMango has joined the Arm Approved Training Partner programme, enabling it to provide official Arm training. It also collaborates with Synopsys and Ohlone College in California to give engineers online access to professional semiconductor design tools.

In Europe, the company plans to establish a design centre in Malta in partnership with Malta Ventures. The facility will extend its engineering presence while supporting commercial semiconductor and AI projects in the region.

Andjelich said the funding provides the foundation for ChipMango’s next growth phase. The company plans to increase its engineering capabilities, deepen its academic and industry partnerships, and enable more engineers to contribute to advanced semiconductor and AI programmes while delivering measurable results for customers.

ChipMango is entering a sector where training alone does not resolve the talent shortage; engineers must also gain experience with commercial tools, workflows and production requirements. By integrating education with paid design work, the company is betting it can shorten that path while building new chip-design capacity across historically underrepresented markets.

Mamor Capital Ventures, a South African-based VC, has taken a significant step forward by raising $18.8 million in the first close of its initial venture fund.

With a focus on addressing funding gaps for post-revenue technology companies in South Africa, the fund aims to target a final close of $34.4 million.

The venture is anchored by the Public Investment Corporation (PIC), which serves as the main investor, signaling confidence in Mamor’s vision to expand opportunities for tech startups showing commercial viability.

South African startups face the challenge of not only demonstrating that they have paying customers but also securing the capital needed for sustainable growth.

This is the gap that Mamor Capital Ventures aims to fill with its inaugural fund. The firm, owned and managed by Black women, supports tech companies that have gone beyond the idea stage and have shown genuine commercial demand.

Mamor Ventures seeks to invest in businesses that, while possibly not yet profitable, still possess paying customers, retention capabilities, a large market potential, and a pathway toward profitability.

Mamokete Ramathe, Founder and CEO of Mamor Capital Ventures, highlighted the firm’s efforts over more than three years to raise this fund amidst caution from institutional investors wary of the risks associated with venture capital.

By focusing on companies with proven market demand, the fund seeks to alleviate some of these perceived risks.

Its investment criteria include ticket sizes ranging from R6 million to R27 million for pre-Series A companies, clearly defining where capital will be deployed.

Developing the South African VC Ecosystem

The Southern African venture capital market is experiencing steady growth, with the 2025 Southern African Venture Capital and Private Equity Association reporting R13.35 billion in active investments by the end of 2024.

Despite this growth, significant challenges remain, particularly around accessing capital for post-revenue startups. The technology sector continues to dominate the regional market, with ICT startups comprising a majority of the deal value.

The financial landscape for South African startups often leaves those in the post-revenue stage in limbo.

Traditional banks view idea-stage startups as risky, while those with paying customers may still lack the necessary size or market presence to secure conventional debt financing. Mamor Capital’s fund acts as a bridge for these early-stage companies, providing essential equity capital needed to scale operations and drive growth.

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Mamor Capital is particularly interested in technology enterprises that leverage digital tools to enhance economic activity in South Africa.

This includes ventures focused on expanding financial access, bolstering digital infrastructure, and widening economic participation through innovative digital and financial services.

With $18.8 million already secured, Mamor is set to pivot from fundraising to actively deploying resources, furthering the transformation of South Africa’s venture capital landscape.