Healthtech: Alan Acquires Senegalese Startup Tanel, Accelerating Its Push into Africa
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Alan, a global health insurance and prevention company, has announced the acquisition of Tanel, a healthtech company founded in Dakar and now operating in Senegal and Côte d’Ivoire.
The transaction is strategic on two fronts. For Alan, it marks its first entry into the African market. For Tanel, it represents a major milestone in the development of a company built around a very practical challenge: making access to healthcare and health coverage management simpler through technology.
From Dakar to Africa: The Tanel Bet
Founded in 2021 by Mouhamed Ndoye and Makhtar Diop, Tanel was born out of a simple observation: across many African companies, managing employee health coverage remains complex, fragmented and still heavily reliant on paper-based processes. The startup developed a platform that enables companies to manage employee health coverage more efficiently, while giving beneficiaries greater visibility into their entitlements and simpler access to healthcare. Four years after its launch, the numbers reflect the company’s progress: approximately 70,000 members, more than 400 corporate clients and a network of over 1,200 pharmacies and healthcare providers across Senegal and Côte d’Ivoire.
It is this digital healthcare infrastructure that caught Alan’s attention.
Alan Had Already Backed Tanel
The relationship between the two companies did not begin with the acquisition. Alan participated in Tanel’s 2024 seed funding round, giving the French group an opportunity to closely follow the startup’s development and gain a deeper understanding of its business model, technology and the realities of West African markets. Over time, the partnership helped both sides develop a shared vision: using technology not only to make healthcare easier to access, but also to enable earlier intervention and strengthen preventive care.
Through the acquisition, Alan is therefore gaining much more than a technology platform. It is gaining a team with first-hand knowledge of local healthcare systems, regulations, businesses and patient expectations.
Target: More Than One Million Members in Africa by 2030
The newly combined business already has ambitious continental plans. Alan and Tanel aim to reach more than one million members across Africa by 2030. The strategy will initially focus on strengthening operations in Senegal and Côte d’Ivoire before expanding into English-speaking markets across West and East Africa. For Tanel users, the transition is not expected to significantly disrupt existing operations. The startup’s team will remain in place and continue to manage its activities.
At the same time, the platform is expected to gradually introduce new services, particularly in telehealth and preventive healthcare. The immediate priority will be to integrate the two companies’ products, improve the digital patient journey and bring Alan’s preventive health services to Tanel’s platform.
An African Market Attracting International Players
The acquisition comes at a time when the need for digital healthcare and health insurance solutions remains significant across Africa. According to Alan, the health insurance market in Senegal and Côte d’Ivoire is worth nearly €600 million and is growing by around 10% annually. For the group, the two countries therefore offer a strategic gateway into a much broader African market.
Alan currently serves more than 1.2 million members across France, Spain, Belgium and Canada. Through Tanel, the company now intends to adapt its model to the African context and establish a long-term presence on the continent.
An Exit That Matters for African Tech
Beyond the commercial transaction itself, Tanel’s acquisition sends an important signal to Africa’s entrepreneurial ecosystem. Startup exits remain relatively rare across African tech, particularly in Francophone Africa. The acquisition of a Senegalese startup by an international player of Alan’s scale therefore represents an important milestone for entrepreneurs and investors across the region. Investors exiting through the transaction include Ventures Platform and AAIC Investment, along with several angel investors. For Ventures Platform, which backed Tanel at an early stage, the deal demonstrates that companies built locally around African realities can create enough value to attract major international players.
For Jean-Charles Samuelian-Werve, CEO and co-founder of Alan, the transaction goes beyond geographical expansion.
“Healthcare systems are evolving all over the world, but the expectations remain the same: easier access to care and support before a health problem becomes more serious.”
The executive believes that Tanel’s local expertise, combined with Alan’s technology, provides a strong foundation for building the group’s African operations.
His conclusion captures the ambition behind the project: “Health can’t wait.” For Mouhamed Ndoye and Makhtar Diop, the next phase should allow Tanel to move faster. The two entrepreneurs say they had to build part of the infrastructure required for their model themselves, particularly around pharmacies and the patient journey. Alan’s backing will now give the startup access to greater technological capabilities, product expertise and resources.
Is Senegal Becoming a New Launchpad for Global Healthtech?
With this acquisition, a startup born in Dakar is becoming the entry point for an international player seeking to establish itself in the African market. The implications therefore go beyond Tanel itself. The deal raises a broader question: is Senegal becoming a genuine gateway for international companies seeking to tap into Africa’s digital healthcare market? The answer will depend on Alan and Tanel’s ability to turn the acquisition into tangible growth, maintain strong relationships with local stakeholders and, above all, adapt their technology to the realities of African healthcare systems. One thing is already clear: for Senegal’s healthtech ecosystem, Alan’s acquisition of Tanel is a strong signal of what may be possible next.
