SophieBot is an e-health startup based in Kenya. The Merck accelerator program has selected SophieBot to participate; allowing the startup to gain access to office space along with personal mentorship and $60,000 USD in funding.
This will be the fourth time that the accelerator program has been run by Merck. Besides Nairobi, the program is also held in Darmstadt, Germany.
The program’s purpose is to especially provide aid to young companies that are in their seed-phase. The chosen startups should be within the fields of healthcare, life science, and performance materials.
The Nairobi accelerator has chosen two startups besides SophieBot. SophieBot only just recently completed an accelerator event run by Nailab called iAccelerator.
SophieBot created a chat bot that answers questions about sexual health using artificial intelligence.
The answers that the chat bot provides are in real-time and pertain towards issues that concern both sexual and reproductive health.
Michael Gambler, the head of the Innovation Center in Darmstadt, said, “Due to the number of high-quality applications from over 60 countries, selecting startups for our fifth round in Darmstadt and our fourth intake in Nairobi was not easy.”
“In comparison to the first accelerator intake back in 2015, we can see that digitalization now plays an even greater role across the healthcare and life science sectors, guaranteeing even faster and easier ways for patients to manage their diseases. We can also see that digitalization is constantly improving daily work for researchers,” said Gambler.
