Across Nigeria, millions quietly endure poor vision because they are unable to find verified optometrists they can trust.
From students dealing with constant eye strain to professionals whose productivity falls because of undiagnosed refractive errors, access to reliable eye care remains frustratingly limited.
The lack of a credible system to find licensed practitioners has fueled a shadow market of unregulated providers, leading to misdiagnosis, unsafe treatments, and preventable deterioration of eye health.
In this edition of Techparley’s Drive100, we spotlight Nethra, a fast-rising digital health platform committed to solving one of Nigeria’s most overlooked public-health challenges, that’s access to trusted, verifiable eye-care services.
Founded by Dr. Samuel Olugbode alongside a multidisciplinary team.
Nethra is building what the founder describes as “Nigeria’s first dedicated digital platform for eye care, offering verified practitioner access, secure digital health records, and proximity-based discovery.”
The startup is designed to help patients locate licensed optometrists, book appointments, and access digital consultation channels, while giving practitioners visibility and tools to grow their practice responsibly.
What You Should Know About Nethra
Nethra is positioning itself as a specialized digital gateway for verified optometrists, not a general telemedicine platform. This specialization is deliberate.
According to the founders, many Nigerians “struggle to locate qualified professionals and often rely on unverified practitioners, leading to misdiagnosis, unsafe treatments, and worsening eye conditions.”
The platform addresses four major pain points:
- poor access to licensed optometrists,
- low trust in optometry services due to unregulated practices,
- fragmented medical records that impede follow-up care, and
- low digital visibility for qualified professionals.
The result is a system where patients delay treatment, optometrists struggle to scale, and communities lose productivity because of preventable vision problems.
Nethra aims to change that equation by enabling verified access, transparent bookings, and continuity of care through secure digital records.
Building a Trusted Bridge Between Patients and Verified Eye-Care Experts
At the heart of Nethra’s solution is verification, a deliberate, manual approach the startup believes is key to restoring trust.
“Every optometrist is manually verified through relevant regulatory bodies,” the team explains, ensuring that only licensed, legitimate practitioners can join the platform.
The platform’s core features include:
- GPS-based search to find nearby licensed optometrists,
- Real-time appointment scheduling,
- Tele-optometry via video consultations,
- Secure, persistent digital records, and
- Emergency mode for urgent cases.
By centering its solution on transparency and safety, Nethra is positioning itself as the digital trust layer Nigeria’s eye-care sector has long lacked.
According to the founders, Nethra’s approach “combines the trust of in-person care with the convenience of digital access,” giving patients clarity while helping optometrists expand their reach and credibility.
How the Model Works, and Why It Matters for Public Health
Nethra’s model is built around a two-sided value system, which are empowerment for patients, and structured engagement for practitioners.
For patients, the platform removes guesswork by creating a curated space exclusively for licensed optometrists. For practitioners, it solves visibility, scheduling inefficiencies, and credibility challenges.
The team emphasizes that their system is intentionally optimized for the realities of Nigerian healthcare.
As they explain, “Our platform was designed to meet the unique needs of eye health, from verified optometrists to managing digital eye records and follow-up consultations.”
Why it matters include the following:
- Nigeria has one of the highest burdens of untreated refractive errors in Africa.
- Eye-care facilities are concentrated in urban centers, leaving millions underserved.
- A regulated digital system could prevent thousands of avoidable eye-health complications annually.
Nethra’s model directly tackles these systemic gaps by combining technology, medical verification, and user-centred design.
Inside the Team Driving Nethra’s Mission
Nethra’s strength lies in a tightly aligned founding team that blends medical, technical, and operational expertise.
Dr. Samuel Olugbode — Founder & Team Lead
A business-development professional and healthcare innovator, he drives strategy, partnerships, and community engagement.
He previously led Web3 projects and cross-border collaborations, giving him a strong foundation in product execution and stakeholder management.
David Bilson — Technical Co-founder
A full-stack engineer experienced in Next.js, React Native, TypeScript, Node.js, MongoDB, and scalable architecture.
The founder notes that David has “a proven track record of taking products from idea to launch,” especially across real-time apps and API-intensive systems.
Dr. Bashirat Abdulganiyu — Project Manager (Operations & Research)
An optometrist and public-health project manager, she oversees research, compliance, user experience, and daily operations.
The team explains her role succinctly as, “She bridges the gap between technology and real-world healthcare impact.”
Together, they represent what they describe as “the next generation of innovators at the intersection of healthcare, technology, and social impact.”
Challenges, Constraints, and How the Team is Solving Them
Like many early-stage African health-tech startups, Nethra faces two major challenges ranging across limited early-stage funding and talent retention.
“Building a healthcare platform requires resources for design, development, and regulatory processes,” the team notes.
Running on lean capital has forced the startup to prioritize core MVP features while leveraging volunteers and mission-aligned contributors.
On technical talent, the team recognizes the struggle of keeping skilled engineers engaged pre-funding. Their solution has been to cultivate a culture rooted in impact.
As they explain, “By offering growth opportunities, leadership roles, and a clear roadmap toward future compensation, we’ve been able to keep our best people motivated and committed.”
These obstacles are typical in African digital health innovation, but Nethra’s approach, deliberate, disciplined, and mission-led, appears to be sustaining its momentum.
Scaling Digital Eye Care for Africa’s Future
Nethra’s near-term goal is to launch its MVP and validate the model across Lagos, Ibadan, Ilorin, and Akure.
With more than “40 optometrists eager to join the platform post-launch” and an initial target of 1,000 patients, the team is building toward a December 2025 rollout.
Over the next three years, Nethra plans to expand into full tele-optometry, including digital prescriptions, insurance integration, and AI-powered vision assessment tools.
Longer term, the team aims to bring blockchain into verification and scale into Ghana and Kenya.
The mission is ambitious, yet simple, to “make accessible, affordable, and technology-driven eye care a standard for all Africans.”
By aligning technology with real medical needs, Nethra is not just building a platform, it is redefining what credible, accessible eye care could look like in Nigeria and beyond.
Talking Points
Nethra presents a thoughtful response to a real and often overlooked healthcare gap in Nigeria, the difficulty of finding trusted, licensed optometrists and accessing consistent, quality eye care.
By focusing on verification, proximity-based search, and continuity of care, the startup addresses a genuine public-health problem that affects students, workers, and families who frequently delay treatment due to distrust or poor access.
Its niche specialization in eye care gives it a clearer value proposition than general telemedicine platforms, and early traction from optometrists suggests strong industry interest.
However, the startup still sits at a concept-to-MVP stage, which means its long-term impact will depend heavily on execution, funding stability, regulatory alignment, and the ability to scale beyond dense urban areas where digital adoption is stronger.
Nethra’s ambition to integrate blockchain verification and AI-based assessments is promising but will require substantial technical maturity and user education to be meaningful.
Overall, Nethra is tackling a worthy and underserved problem with a focused approach, but its success will hinge on maintaining medical credibility, earning patient trust, and building a platform robust enough to compete in a growing but highly demanding digital health landscape.
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