Neighbourhood pharmacies are the unrecognised backbone of healthcare in Africa. In Kenya alone, these small, independently run chemists handle most of the country’s medicine distribution, accounting for over two-thirds of primary care and dispensing roughly 60% of all drugs sold in the East Africa region. Yet, despite their central role, they remain largely offline and under-financed.
Zendawa, a Nakuru-based startup with operations in Kiambu and Nairobi, speculates that the future of African healthcare runs through these micro-pharmacies.
Founded in 2022, the 16-person team has developed a modular software platform that connects thousands of chemists to digital supply chains, working capital credit, and basic management tools. Its goal is to bring last-mile pharmacies online, but not through “disruption” as most startups claim at their inception.
Zendawa is modular, but what does this mean?
Zendawa’s thesis rests on the last-mile delivery of essential medicines, business management, and access to credit. Its platform, available through the web and soon USSD, gives pharmacies access to three integrated tools.
First is the telepharmacy marketplace, a B2B platform that connects pharmacies to verified distributors for faster restocking. It’s complemented by business management software for inventory, payments, and reconciliation, and an embedded finance layer that offers credit scoring and working capital loans, powered by transaction data.
Unlike most health-tech platforms that build rigid products, Zendawa’s approach is modular. Pharmacies can plug in only what they need, without abandoning their existing systems.
“Our main adoption barrier has been pharmacies that already have a management system,” Will Chege, Zendawa CEO, said. “We innovated around this by making our platform modular, such that they do not need to migrate from the systems but rather adopt the modules from our system, which they do not have access to.”
That decision has shaped how quickly the company is scaling; the platform has onboarded hundreds of pharmacies through referral networks, primarily the Pharmaceutical Society of Kenya.
How Zendawa makes money
Zendawa’s model sits at the intersection of SaaS (software-as-a-service), fintech, and marketplace economics. However, according to Chege, its “stickiest” product is the pharmacy management software, yet the company doesn’t charge for it. Instead, revenue flows mainly from marketplace commissions on each order processed. This keeps adoption friction low while generating repeat transaction income.
Zendawa doesn’t currently lend from its own balance sheet, but it has partnered with capital providers who advance credit using Zendawa’s data as proof of performance. The startup earns a 1% service fee on every successful repayment cycle and reports a 98% repayment rate so far.
Over time, Zendawa wants to let pharmacies accept both card and mobile money payments directly in their shops. Each transaction would earn Zendawa a small processing fee, creating an extra source of income.
For now, Zendawa operates on founders’ capital and has not disclosed plans to raise funds.
Credit, data, and the path to lending
Zendawa’s “data-to-credit” model sits at the core of its system. Each purchase, repayment, and sale recorded on the platform builds a data engine that measures pharmacy performance. This record enables lenders to extend working-capital loans without collateral, thereby opening up credit access to pharmacies that have long been excluded from formal banking.
“Long-term, we intend to loan from our own balance sheet thus having direct influence over interest rates charged,” Chege said.
Expanding offline
The next phase is rural expansion. The company is building a USSD version of its platform to reach pharmacies and health workers without smartphones. The biggest challenge isn’t infrastructure, but behaviour.
“Some communities are skeptical of adopting digital channels to access medications,” the CEO admitted. “We are working around this by lobbying to partner with community health workers to promote our approach. This is an on-going development.”
Zendawa’s logistics model, built around flexible partnerships with delivery providers, supports this expansion. Riders can be deployed based on demand patterns, ensuring even low-density areas are served without heavy fixed costs.
AI and data governance
Zental.AI is Zendawa’s next major step, a system built to automate routine work inside pharmacies. It manages restocking, reminds patients to collect refills, and prepares daily records.
Using computer vision, it can read prescriptions and count stock, cutting down on errors that often slow operations. Its demand forecasting feature predicts what each pharmacy will need, reducing waste from expired drugs and keeping shelves stocked.
The system relies on sensitive health data. Zendawa’s Wellness Check AI gathers and analyses biometric information for preventive care under strict data protection rules. It complies with the GDPR and Kenya’s Data Protection Act, Chege said, applying encryption, anonymisation, and obtaining informed consent. All diagnostic tools remain under human supervision.
How does Zendawa stand out in a crowded field?
Kenya’s health-tech space is already competitive. MYDAWA, a local startup, leads in direct-to-consumer drug delivery. Maisha Meds focuses on digitising small pharmacies. Zendawa’s defence lies in its modular, asset-light structure, according to Chege.
“Our modular approach gives us a low entry point with a unique growth path for our pharmacies. This is a long-term play where we build up our pharmacies while maintaining their independence to offer quality care at a fraction of the cost,” Chege said.
“This model is highly scalable due to our asset-light approach and our competitors would have to shed millions of dollars worth of assets to adopt our approach with no immediate return.”
Rather than consolidating pharmacies under one brand, Zendawa’s model supports its autonomy while embedding technology into pharmacy operations. It’s a slower path but one with deeper retention. The average Zendawa pharmacy that digitises its operations sees a 30% rise in sales and gains access to credit for the first time.
The long game is hinged on infrastructure
Zendawa’s long game is not software-as-a-service, nor another fintech front-end. It’s about building the infrastructure layer that supports how pharmacies operate. This system can be plugged into any retail counter and quietly power the flow of medicine, money, and data across Africa’s fragmented healthcare market.
“Think Shopify, but for licensed pharmaceutical products,” Chege says. “Our aim is to give every neighbourhood pharmacy the tools to operate online — sustainably, compliantly, and without losing independence.”
That vision mirrors a broader shift in Africa’s digital health sector, from flashy consumer apps to companies that provide infrastructure, such as systems that standardise data, payments, and compliance.
