When, in 2017, Doaa Aref was identified with thyroid most cancers, she quickly discovered that her survival relied on common entry to treatment—and that this entry was way more difficult than it needs to be. “I used to be sitting within the oncology clinic ready room after I [realised] that different sufferers had been having the identical drawback,” Aref, 38, remembers. “We had been all struggling to search out our prescribed drugs, typically touring from one pharmacy to a different with out success.”
Egypt, the Arab world’s most populous nation with roughly 114 million individuals, has witnessed years of various ranges of medication shortages on account of sharp forex devaluations which started in 2016 and impacted each imports and native productions that rely closely on imported uncooked supplies. At its peak, almost 1,000 kinds of medicines had been in brief provide in Egypt, however latest efforts have diminished this quantity to about 500. However, provide issues persist, particularly for some imported medicines and specialised medicine, leaving many sufferers of persistent sicknesses struggling to search out medicines.
This frustration turned the impetus for Chefaa, now Egypt’s main e-pharmacy platform. What started as Aref’s private effort to streamline her entry to important drugs is now a regional healthtech participant digitising pharmacy operations and supply methods throughout Egypt and past.
Collectively together with her co-founder, pediatric hematology-oncology specialist Dr. Rasha Rady, Aref launched Chefaa in 2018. The platform permits customers to add prescriptions or enter drug names, then connects them to close by pharmacies which have the treatment in inventory. Deliveries are dispatched based mostly on the affected person’s location, with Chefaa taking a fee beginning at 5% on every transaction.
The app additionally permits sufferers to schedule recurring treatment deliveries, essential for these with persistent sicknesses who rely upon well timed doses.
Chefaa’s distinctive proposition
Egypt has no scarcity of pharmacies—90,000 are licensed nationwide. However as Rady, 42, explains, entry to drugs isn’t assured. “The difficulty isn’t the variety of pharmacies—it’s the disparity of their inventory ranges,” she says. “Treatment distribution is inconsistent, and native provide hardly ever aligns with demand in particular areas.”
Chefaa tackles this by aggregating provide throughout 1000’s of pharmacies. “You shouldn’t have to look the streets when you’ve this many pharmacies,” Rady provides. “You want one thing that offers you the widest entry, shortly, safely, and effectively.”
Aref invested her life financial savings – EGP 900,000 ($50,526 on the official trade price) – from a earlier enterprise in drop-shipping to fund the app’s growth and partnered with a software program agency to construct the platform. Shortly after, she joined the startup accelerator Flat6Labs, the place Chefaa secured its first investor in trade for 10% fairness.
On the time, Egypt’s market was saturated: “In 2018, there have been 19 different drugs supply apps,” Aref says. “Many closed down—both attributable to lack of funds or insufficient medical understanding. Now solely three or 4 actual rivals stay.” However she believes Egypt’s quickly rising inhabitants can assist a number of gamers.
Constructing loyalty
Aref and Rady noticed early on that consumer retention could be key. So, they constructed out a number of free options to encourage repeat engagement.
Certainly one of these is treatment reminders, which assist customers develop a behavior across the app. One other is “Ask Chefaa’s Pharmacist,” a 24/7 in-app chat with licensed pharmacists for real-time questions—particularly useful in emergencies, the place misinformation could be harmful.
Chefaa additionally runs a well being weblog with over 4.5 million month-to-month guests. It supplies steering, in Arabic, on drug utilization, side-effects, and use of beauty merchandise, aiming to counteract Egypt’s rising dependence on unreliable on-line well being recommendation.
For Hagar Khaled, a diabetic affected person who started utilizing Chefaa in 2024, the app proved important throughout a nationwide insulin scarcity. “I couldn’t discover my treatment in pharmacies for months,” she says. “Chefaa introduced it to my door each time.”
Whereas she’s sometimes encountered technical bugs, Khaled appreciates that the app’s pharmacists verify every order and provide options when precise prescriptions are unavailable.
Pharmacies additionally profit. Mahmoud Salem, who manages a 12-branch pharmacy chain, says that the app helps deal with market inefficiencies. Many drugs have a number of generic equivalents, and pharmacies can’t inventory all of them. Consequently, sufferers typically battle to search out particular manufacturers, particularly these with restricted advertising and marketing budgets.
Chefaa helps match these unmet calls for with current provide, and supplies pharmacies with a further gross sales channel. “It’s a brand new advertising and marketing and gross sales route past our conventional ones,” Salem says. “It’s additionally serving to us have interaction a youthful buyer base.”
Nonetheless, regulatory compliance and danger mitigation stay challenges. Chefaa doesn’t fulfil orders for narcotics, psychotropics, or scheduled medicine, to forestall abuse. Orders for delicate drugs require prescription uploads, and pharmacists evaluate every request for potential well being dangers.
Nonetheless, Salem warns that some customers with data of drug formulations try to over-order authorized drugs. “They could request extreme quantities of seemingly common medicine that mimic results of restricted substances,” he says. “However a suspecting pharmacist might block the sale.”
“I couldn’t discover my treatment in pharmacies for months. Chefaa introduced it to my door each time.”
– Hagar Khaled, a diabetic affected person who started utilizing Chefaa in 2024
COVID-19 enhance and post-pandemic enlargement
Paradoxically, COVID-19 gave Chefaa a big push. As brick-and-mortar retail struggled beneath lockdown restrictions, demand for digital well being options soared. Based on its founders, consumer development surged 300% throughout the pandemic as extra individuals had been in search of digital options to fulfil their primary wants.
In early 2021, Chefaa joined Google’s regional accelerator program for startups, gaining technical mentorship and visibility. The founders additionally realised they had been sitting on a precious dataset: buying traits from 1000’s of pharmacies and prospects.
They spun this information right into a subscription-based analytics device for pharmacies and producers known as Chefaa Bi HUB. It supplies insights into consumption patterns, serving to stakeholders make smarter manufacturing and advertising and marketing choices.
Chefaa’s post-pandemic development included a significant enlargement into Saudi Arabia, the place it now operates in eight cities. The Gulf market made sense, Rady explains, attributable to its similarity in client behaviour, sizeable Egyptian diaspora, and standing as one of many area’s high 4 Pharma markets.
Rising investor confidence
In 2023, the startup raised $5.25 million in a funding spherical backed by world traders, together with South Africa’s Newtown Companions, Japan’s International Mind and M3, Inc., the U.S.-based GMS Capital Companions LLC, and Verod-Kepple Africa Ventures from Nigeria.
Notably, the spherical included each returning and new traders—an indication of rising confidence within the firm, regardless of Egypt’s financial volatility and repeated forex devaluations.
“The bottom line is having a sensible plan,” Rady says. “Don’t promise traders the moon. Know your dangers, and have methods for overcoming them.”
With the funds, Chefaa expanded its staff (now over 140 workers), scaled its logistics infrastructure, onboarded extra pharmacies, and launched a provide arm known as Chefaa Provide, to offer short-stocked gadgets to associate pharmacies.
Nonetheless, being a woman-led firm in a male-dominated area hasn’t been with out challenges. “Some traders hesitate after they study the co-founders are girls,” Aref notes. “Others are cautious of investing in an Egyptian agency given the area’s political instability and the weakening pound.”
Seven years on, Chefaa now serves over 4.5 million month-to-month customers, connects to greater than 1,600 pharmacies, and helps 229 registered manufacturers through its platform. It counts 9 institutional traders and continues to develop.
Extra just lately, in 2025, it was considered one of simply seven African startups chosen for the Innovate and Make investments program backed by International Fund and the Invoice & Melinda Gates Basis. The corporate acquired $225,000 in funding—a powerful vote of confidence from worldwide companions.
Growth stays on the horizon. Whereas the staff hasn’t named the subsequent goal nation, the founders are clear about their precedence: want, not market measurement.
“We’re a data-driven firm,” Aref says. “So, we’ll go the place our resolution is required most, not simply the place the inhabitants is largest.”
This piece was revealed in collaboration with Egab.
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