Chekkit, a Nigerian anti-counterfeiting startup, has raised a pre-seed funding round of US$500,000 to help it expand its operations in the pharmaceutical and FMCG industries.
This round included Pan African VC, Launch Africa, Japan Strategic Capital, Blockchain Founders Fund, and two angel syndicate groups. The company also received funding from the Orange Corners program in the Netherlands.
Chekkit, founded in 2018 by Dare Odumade, CEO, and Oluwatosin Adelowo, CMO, offers Blockchain-based product verification and anti-counterfeiting solutions. The company claims to protect manufacturers and consumers from counterfeit food and drugs.
Chekkit, which was founded at the Meltwater Entrepreneurial School of Technology (MEST) in Accra, Ghana, has created a platform that tracks product movement and the parties involved in the transfer of products from the warehouse to the distributor and finally to the final consumer.
Chekkit is essentially a tool for anti-counterfeiting, asset tracking, and consumer feedback analytics. It creates tamper-proof unique ID labels in the form of QR codes or numeric codes that can be placed on premium packaged food and beverage products to track supply chain and consumer feedback.
“We are extremely excited about the future as we develop unique technological products to protect the lives of millions while also directly improving the act of doing business for several brands by learning about consumers in the largely informal African markets,” said Chekkit CEO Dare Odumade.
Biola Alabi, the co-founder of one of the angel syndicate groups, called investing in Chekkit a “no-brainer.” They are combating the scourge of counterfeit drugs in Nigeria and other emerging markets around the world. Fake and substandard drugs, weak regulatory environments, and a lack of consumer education continue to be major challenges for Africa’s pharmaceutical and healthcare systems. Thousands of Africans are killed each year as a result of counterfeit and substandard drugs, according to Alabi.
Chekkit has worked with pharmaceutical companies such as Merck, Royal Star Pharma, and Nabros Pharmaceutical to secure over seven million pharmaceutical products and protect over 200,000 consumers. The funding will be used to expand its reach in this sector as well as in FMCG, where it already works with brands such as Indomie, Nivea, and Flourmills of Nigeria.
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