Ades, an Abidjan-based healthtech founded by a group of young doctors in 2019, has secured CFA 350 million, roughly USD 620,500, in equity funding from CDC-CI Capital. The state-backed investor is the investment arm of Côte d’Ivoire’s Caisse des Dépôts et Consignations. The round aims to accelerate Ades’s expansion and deepen access to hybrid, technology-enabled healthcare across the country.
Funding and Use of Proceeds
The capital will finance upgrades to UMED, Ades’s digital platform that anchors its patient services and clinical workflows. Funds will also modernize biomedical and imaging equipment to improve diagnostic quality and reliability. In addition, Ades will expand its fleet of medical vehicles, including ambulances and motorbikes, to scale rapid-response and urban home-care capacity.
Hybrid Care Model and Services
Ades operates a hybrid model that blends telemedicine with in-person care to close gaps in access and continuity. Through UMED, patients can book online consultations, schedule home visits and nursing care, and access imaging and biomedical testing. The platform also supports remote monitoring for chronic conditions, linking clinicians, diagnostics, and logistics into one service layer.
Traction and Coverage
By the end of 2024, Ades reported delivering more than 6,000 home-care treatments, a sign that demand for doorstep and after-hours services is real and rising. The startup has partnered with over 50 companies to provide corporate health monitoring and occupational medicine. Its coverage spans general nursing and specialties such as pediatrics and cardiology, supporting both individual patients and enterprise clients.
Strategic Role of CDC-CI Capital
CDC-CI Capital’s investment is part of a broader mandate to back high-potential Ivorian startups that address essential economic and social needs. The fund’s CEO, Arthur Coulibaly, said the deal builds on Ades’s early leadership in telemedicine, particularly in remote consultations and connected imaging. That positioning made the case for growth capital to harden infrastructure and widen reach.
Ecosystem Signal and Precedent
This is not CDC-CI Capital’s first bet on local technology operators solving structural problems. Earlier this year, the fund invested CFA 800 million, about USD 1.3 million, in the Abidjan fintech Djamo to push financial inclusion for underbanked users. Backing both healthtech and fintech signals a deliberate strategy to channel public capital into platforms that can scale impact efficiently.
Market Context and Needs
Healthcare access in many African markets is constrained by uneven facility distribution, workforce shortages, and limited diagnostics. Telemedicine alone rarely solves the last mile, and brick-and-mortar alone cannot scale quickly without digital leverage. Ades’s model, which integrates software, clinical services, imaging, and logistics, is designed to bridge that divide and meet everyday demand with predictable response times.
Implementation and Next Steps
Platform upgrades should bring faster triage, cleaner patient records, and tighter integration of imaging, lab results, and monitoring data. New equipment will reduce maintenance risks and improve throughput, while additional vehicles will shorten wait times for home visits in dense urban areas. Together, these moves aim to lift unit efficiency, expand geographic coverage, and raise service quality for both households and employers.
Ades’s raise from a state-backed investor is a clear vote of confidence in hybrid healthcare as a practical path to broader access in Côte d’Ivoire. The company now has the means to strengthen its technology, refresh core clinical assets, and scale field operations. If execution matches ambition, Ades could become a reference model for blending telemedicine with on-the-ground care in West Africa.