Nigeria contributes a significant number of the 100,000 deaths recorded every day in Africa as a result of fake products, especially from pharmaceutical products. A report by the World Health Organisation in 2020 found that 70 percent of all drugs present in Nigeria were substandard or fake.
Consumption of fake products not only has implications for the economy given that it undermines genuine efforts to drive revenue, but the bigger implication is also on the health of the citizens who oftentimes have little or no information on how to identify these hazardous goods.
Chekkit Technologies, a Lagos-based startup, sees this challenge as an opportunity and has since 2018 was founded made it its mission to help protect millions of Nigerians who at different points would be exposed to these fake or counterfeit products.
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In doing that, the company said it has so far secured over 7 million pharmaceutical products, protected over 200,000 consumers, and penned a partnership deal with the government of Afghanistan for the verification and tracking of over 200 million products in the Middle-Eastern country. Chekkit has been able to achieve all that through grants and revenue from the business.
The startup has now secured its first institutional investment, a $500,000 pre-seed funding round from investors such as Launch Africa, Japan Strategic Capital, Blockchain Founders Fund, and two syndicate groups of angel investors. There is also a grant from the Orange Corners program.
The funding would be used to strengthen the company’s anti-counterfeiting and consumer engagement solution as well as boost its robust supply chain tracking and infrastructural optimisation technologies.
Chekkit a startup founded by Dare Odumade and Jida Asare, offers blockchain-powered anti-counterfeiting, real-time supply chain tracking, and a customer experience analytics platform. It uses a combination of existing technologies such as Mobile Authentication Scheme (MAS), artificial intelligence (AI), and blockchain to solve the challenges of – counterfeits, pilferage, switching of goods, and inefficient supply chain.
To facilitate its work, Chekkit has had to collaborate with pharmaceutical companies like Merck, Royal Star Pharma, and Nabros Pharmaceutical among many others. It also works with consumer goods brands like Indomie, Nivea, and Flourmills of Nigeria Plc. It also partners with government agencies like NAFDAC, Africa CDC, GSI, and the FCCPC to ensure the products it offers are safe and of the best standards for consumption.
“Investing Chekkit Technologies was a no-brainer, they are tackling the scourge of fake drugs in Nigeria and across emerging markets globally, one of the biggest challenges still facing the pharmaceutical and healthcare systems in Africa is fake and substandard drugs, weak regulatory environments, and lack of consumer education. Fake and substandard drugs are responsible for thousands of deaths annually across Africa,” Biola Alabi, co-leader of one of the angel syndicate groups said.
Chekkit says the funds will enable the direct protection of about 100 million lives across the globe. It has set plans in motion to expand its team by recruiting talents.
Dare Odumade, CEO of Chekkit also disclosed the launch of the first consumer intelligence software-as-a-service for consumer brands to create end-to-end loyalty campaigns, aggregate engagement data, and distribute rewards in-house and with their marketing agencies for the first time ever.
