Alright, this convention floor is just too loud, but I gotta get this out. Small AI models, right? They’re making a real impact, especially in places like Africa, where the tech needs to be lean and effective. So, Adebayo Alonge, he’s the co-founder of RxAll.
He started this company because he almost died from counterfeit medication in Nigeria. He was in a 21-day coma, can you believe that? That’s a serious personal motivation, and it drives the whole mission. RxAll uses AI-powered handheld scanners, called RxScanners, to detect fake drugs.
These devices use light spectroscopy and AI to check the quality of medicines. It takes like 20 seconds to get results on a smartphone. The problem is huge, absolutely massive. Counterfeit drugs kill thousands of people every year, globally.
In Africa alone, it’s estimated that 100,000 people die annually from fake or substandard medicines. Some reports even push that number to 500,000 deaths per year in sub-Saharan Africa from falsified and substandard medical products. And it’s not just deaths, it costs between $12 million and $44.7 million annually just to care for people affected by fake malaria drugs in sub-Saharan Africa. It’s a public health crisis, and it’s also an economic drain.
RxAll, they’ve been busy. They started in 2016, Alonge and Amy Kao, they were Yale business school classmates. They’ve expanded beyond just the scanner now, it’s a whole digital ecosystem. They connect patients, pharmacies, drugmakers, and public health agencies.
They’ve got the Rxdelivered Marketplace, which helps pharmacies and patients buy authenticated medicines online. They even offer financing to pharmacies, especially the independent ones, so they can buy quality products. That’s smart, because 95% of African pharmacies are independently owned and still use handwritten records. The company has raised money, too.
They secured $3.15 million in a funding round in July 2021, led by SOSV’s HAX, with Launch Africa and Keisuke Honda’s KSK fund participating. Before that, they had a $900,000 pre-seed round in late 2020. They’ve served over 2 million people a month and work with more than 4,000 pharmacies across Africa, specifically in Nigeria, Kenya, and Uganda. Their RxScanner has helped remove 1.3 million counterfeit medications from the supply chain.
That’s a verifiable data point right there. And this isn’t just about RxAll, it’s about small AI models. They’re crucial because in many African settings, you don’t have the infrastructure for huge, cloud-dependent AI. Small, localized models running on edge devices, like these scanners, they are the answer.
They don’t need constant high-bandwidth internet, which is often a problem. AI can really help with things like telehealth, reducing hospital visits, even diagnosing malaria in rural areas where there aren’t enough skilled health workers. It’s not just about drug authentication, it’s about improving the whole healthcare delivery system. Governments are getting involved.
RxAll has forged five partnerships with government agencies, including Nigeria’s National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control. This helps regulators identify fake drugs and even plan public health outreach. Rwanda, for example, has this National Health Intelligence Center, using AI for real-time surveillance and early outbreak detection. It’s all about localizing these solutions, not just trying to drop big, complex Western AI models into different environments.
It makes you think, how many other industries could benefit from this kind of focused, small AI deployment, instead of everyone chasing the biggest LLMs? This is where the real work happens, on the ground, solving actual problems. Oh, and speaking of ground work, I bought some NVDA stock on July 1, 2024, at $124.10 a share. Just a small position, you know, planning to sell if it hits $200 or if the market for gaming GPUs just completely collapses, whichever comes first.