Throughout this period, participants receive personalised and group mentorship from seasoned professionals across the healthcare, technology, and business sectors.
Evon Labs, an innovation and venture-building platform dedicated to identifying and scaling technology-enabled solutions addressing critical challenges, has launched HealthX Catalyst, a 12-week health-tech incubation program aimed at helping early-stage founders create scalable, investable solutions for Africa’s urgent healthcare issues. The program is underway, with 12 selected founders nearing the final weeks of intensive incubation, ending with a Demo Day on June 24, 2026.
HealthX Catalyst was developed in response to a structural gap in the African health-tech ecosystem. Across the continent, a growing number of entrepreneurs are building solutions to healthcare problems from access and diagnostics to service delivery and health data infrastructure. Yet many of these early-stage ideas fail to progress beyond concept, not for lack of vision, but for lack of structured support: mentorship, startup development frameworks, industry access, and early-stage funding pathways. HealthX Catalyst was built to provide exactly that.
“Africa does not have a shortage of healthcare innovators. What it has lacked is the infrastructure to turn its ideas into sustainable businesses. HealthX Catalyst is that infrastructure, a serious, structured programme designed to take founders from early-stage ideas to investable startups. What we are seeing from this first cohort is exactly what we set out to create: founders who are not just building products, but building businesses that can scale and create lasting impact.”
– Isioma Udeozo, Founder, Evon Labs
The programme selects early-stage healthcare founders and immerses them in a structured 12-week development process. Throughout this period, participants receive personalised and group mentorship from seasoned professionals across the healthcare, technology, and business sectors. They also receive structured support for startup development, including refining business models, developing value propositions, and validating markets. Additionally, participants gain access to a network of healthcare practitioners, sector experts, and industry leaders, along with targeted investment-readiness assistance to prepare them to engage with investors and strategic partners after the programme.
The result is a cohort of founders who move through the programme not simply with a refined pitch, but with a validated business model, a stronger professional network, and a clear pathway to growth.
The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) is a partner for the inaugural edition of HealthX Catalyst, bringing its commitment to sustainable development and health systems strengthening to the programme. The UNDP’s involvement underscores the alignment between HealthX Catalyst’s work and broader continental priorities around health equity, economic inclusion, and innovation-led development across Africa.
The programme will conclude with an inaugural Demo Day on 24 June 2026 at the UNDP innovation centre in Lagos, where the 12 cohort founders will present their solutions to an audience of investors, healthcare leaders, development organisations, and technology partners. The event represents both a milestone for the current cohort and a public demonstration of what structured health-tech incubation can produce.
Other partners include OICL (Odua Investment Company Limited), Washington University of St. Louis, Missouri, Lagos State Employment Trust Fund (LSETF), and Brooks Insights.
To accelerate the most promising solutions beyond the programme, monetary grants will be awarded to the top three founders to support product development, pilot implementation, market validation, and early-stage scaling.
