Turaco

Turaco creates simplified insurance and credit solutions distributed through mobile technology to uniquely solve the healthcare financing needs of emerging customers in Kenya.

Turaco offers on-demand health loans so customers can get care at our network of clinics or hospitals and pay back over time. It’s like insurance, without the monthly premiums. Turaco designs simplified and useful insurance products for its customers at extremely affordable monthly premiums.

The company works off of a system known as a “nano-loan” — a tiny, short-term loan of hard cash. Customers would be pre-approved for nano-loans of $10-$25, accessible when they are sick or injured and need to pay for a medical service. The money is sent to them, often in the form of mobile money, so they can immediately seek care. The customer then pays back the loan, plus $5-$8, over a period of four weeks. While they’re paying back the loan they also receive access to telemedicine services and hospital insurance.

The company has decided to pursue a B2B model first, citing a lower barrier of entry and higher margins, as well as a real need. Turaco would offer an in-between stop-gap that would help them minimise sick days, maximise productivity and costs, and retain the best employees. Employees whose companies enrol are automatically approved in the system.

Once they’ve saturated Kenya, Turaco plans to balloon out across East Africa, with Uganda and Tanzania on the shortlist in the near future.

Turaco announced a $2m Seed round in November 2020, stating it planned to use the fund to scale its operations in Sub-Saharan Africa.

In May 2022 Turaco teamed up with financial wellness venture Power to offer affordable health insurance products to Africans . The new insurance offerings will have flexible premiums payments and will target gig and full-time workers, enabling them to buy insurance within seconds.

In June 2023 the company reached one million lives insured. 

In September Turaco raised $10m in Series A funding.