Zendawa, a Kenyan startup based in Nakuru, believes the future of African healthcare runs through micro-pharmacies. Founded in 2022, the team has developed a modular software platform that connects thousands of chemists to digital supply chains, working capital, and essential business management tools.
Unlike many health-tech startups that pursue rapid disruption, Zendawa takes a modular, incremental approach designed to complement existing systems.
According to the startup, its goal is to bring last-mile pharmacies online, but not through “disruption” as most startups claim at their inception.
“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.”
What You Should Know
Zendawa’s platform focuses on three critical aspects of pharmacy operations, which are medicine supply, business management, and access to credit. The platform is currently accessible via the web, with a USSD version in development to reach pharmacies and health workers without smartphones.
At the core of Zendawa’s offering is a B2B telepharmacy marketplace that connects pharmacies with verified distributors, allowing for faster restocking of essential medicines. This not only reduces delays but also ensures that small, independent chemists can reliably meet local demand.
Alongside the marketplace, Zendawa provides business management tools that assist pharmacies in tracking inventory, reconciling payments, and generating operational reports. The startup says these tools help micro-pharmacies run more systematically, improving both efficiency and transparency.
Complementing supply and management functions, Zendawa embeds a finance layer that leverages transaction data to offer credit scoring and access to working capital loans. Hundreds of pharmacies have already joined Zendawa through referral networks, primarily facilitated by the Pharmaceutical Society of Kenya.
Understanding its Business Model
Zendawa operates at the intersection of SaaS, fintech, and marketplace economics. While the pharmacy management software is the company’s most widely used product, it is offered free to reduce adoption friction. Revenue primarily comes from marketplace commissions on processed orders.
Credit offerings are provided through partnerships with capital providers, using Zendawa’s transaction data to assess performance.
The startup earns a 1% service fee on each successful repayment, boasting a 98% repayment rate to date. Future plans include enabling pharmacies to accept card and mobile payments, generating additional income from processing fees.
Central to Zendawa’s model is its “data-to-credit” approach. The startup says every purchase, sale, and repayment captured on the platform builds a data engine that demonstrates pharmacy performance.
Lenders can then extend working capital loans without requiring collateral, a first for many small pharmacies traditionally excluded from formal banking.
Reaching Rural and Offline Pharmacies
Zendawa reveals its next phase targets rural expansion. A USSD version of the platform is under development to reach pharmacies and health workers without smartphones. Behavioural adoption, rather than infrastructure, poses the biggest challenge.
“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.”
Flexible partnerships with delivery providers ensure that even low-density areas are served without incurring heavy fixed costs, supporting the startup’s asset-light expansion model.
Zendawa is also developing Zental.AI, a system designed to automate routine pharmacy tasks, including:
- Restocking reminders
- Prescription reading using computer vision
- Demand forecasting to reduce waste
- Daily operational reporting
Patient data collected through Wellness Check AI supports preventive care, with strict compliance to GDPR and Kenya’s Data Protection Act. All diagnostic processes remain under human supervision, ensuring ethical standards and data security.
Differentiation in a Crowded Market
Neighbourhood pharmacies are the often-overlooked backbone of healthcare in Africa. In Kenya alone, small, independently run chemists handle the majority of the country’s medicine distribution.
Reports say they account for over two-thirds of primary care and dispensing roughly 60% of all drugs sold in East Africa. Yet despite their central role, most remain offline and under-financed, limiting their efficiency and reach.
Kenya’s health-tech sector includes players such as MYDAWA, which focuses on direct-to-consumer delivery, and Maisha Meds, which digitises small pharmacies. Zendawa differentiates itself through its modular, asset-light approach.
“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.
Unlike consolidation-driven competitors, Zendawa supports autonomous operations, embedding infrastructure rather than branding, creating deeper retention and long-term sustainability.
With continued development, experts say the startup can provide an infrastructure layer for African pharmacies, standardising data, payments, and compliance across fragmented healthcare markets.
Talking Points
Zendawa’s modular platform is transforming how neighbourhood pharmacies operate by digitising medicine supply, business management, and access to credit. By connecting small chemists to verified distributors, the startup addresses one of the most pressing challenges in African healthcare: reliable access to essential medicines.
At Techparley, we see how Zendawa’s approach could accelerate digital transformation in the healthcare sector, particularly for pharmacies outside major cities that often operate offline and under-financed.
By providing tools to manage inventory, payments, and reconciliation, the platform allows small pharmacies to run with efficiency similar to larger chains.
As Zendawa expands, there is a clear opportunity to build a foundational infrastructure layer for African pharmacies. By combining supply, finance, and operational tools in one flexible system, the startup is positioned to play a pivotal role in the continent’s evolving digital health ecosystem.
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