Bootstrapping His RevTech Startup to USD 20M Transaction Volume in 3+ Years

Nigeria’s first fully digital revenue assurance platform for the public sector, with an initial focus on healthcare institutions, Pay1One has processed over 20 million dollars in revenue for public hospitals in Nigeria over 3 years. This was made known by the CEO of Avancee Pinnacle, Tolu Oluyemi, the creator of the Pay1One payment solution.

In their bid to deal with corruption, leakages, and maximize returns for public health institutions, from tertiary to primary health care centers, Tolu and his co-founder, Adedamola Bowale and CTO Peter Arijiniwa, created Pay1One. This digital technology platform fully automates revenue collection in public health facilities, with minimal cost.

Tolu, in a recent interview, pointed out that Pay1One, which was first deployed to just one hospital when they started out in 2019, has now enjoyed the patronage of 116 tertiary and state hospitals, Federal Medical Centers, Primary Health Centers, General Hospitals, and Federal MDAs in the country.

“We launched in 2019 at one location (health facility), the location actually had an existing company they were using, but their solution wasn’t good enough and was quite expensive. However, we brought a fully digital solution, less expensive and automated. This was how we were able to penetrate the market” Tolu said.

“With just one health facility and about 4 staff, today we exist in over 100 hospitals and medical centers, with 170+ staff strength”.

Pay1One, which has processed over 12 billion Naira of transactions, and deployed to major federal and state health facilities, was bootstrapped without external investment or press limelight. Tolu pointed out that they were more focused on solving the problem than making a fuss about the problem they solve.

What’s even more interesting is that Pay1One helps the hospitals increase their revenue by at least 50%, meaning if not for Tolu and his team’s tech intervention in the sector, half of these funds might have been lost due to leakages and pilferages in the sector.

Tolu maintained the government continues to fund these sectors, however, due to manual processes, very little or no ROI, hence the development of these robust online and offline digital revenue assurance platforms that enable revenue collection even in the least-resourced environments by simply digitalizing all payments.

The company experienced its big break in 2020, during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic when the team onboarded two major model hospitals in Nigeria.

“In FMC Ebute-Meta, there was also an existing platform for revenue collection for the health, but let me quote the Chief Medical Director of FMC Ebute-Meta, Dr. Dada, he said when we got to FMC Ebute-Meta, their revenue ‘tripled by 100%’. This is due to our optimized digital system and the efficiency of our team,” Tolu said.

According to a state government his company partnered with to ensure revenue assurance in its primary health care centers, experienced 500% revenue growth, making it possible for the state to employ more medical personnel and for these centers to fund themselves. This is the kind of real-life problems Tolu and his team set out to solve.

“We being able to process $10 million for these hospitals within 3 years is incredibly huge, if we were actually not there maybe these health facilities would only get 30% of this revenue accounted for because of massive leakages in the system” He added.

The London-trained tech leader said Avancee Pinnacle has recently also partnered with GetPayed Technology Limited to pilot four hospitals in two more states.

In envisioning the future trajectory of Avancee Pinnacle and its payment solutions, Tolu has articulated a bold strategy aimed at expanding into agency banking. This move capitalizes on the company’s established presence in remote and rural communities through its service delivery to health facilities in these areas. By leveraging this infrastructure, Avancee Pinnacle aims to foster financial inclusion for the unbanked, a mission with transformative potential.

Furthermore, Tolu outlines a strategic pivot towards a more data-driven approach. Central to this vision is the seamless onboarding of customers from remote regions and the facilitation of frictionless transactions for rural small and medium enterprises (SMEs). This ambitious endeavor will be powered by cutting-edge machine learning models and fraud detection algorithms, drawing insights from the rich data enabled by the company’s existing service deliveries to health facilities in these regions. Spearheading this data-driven evolution is Tolu’s co-founder, Adedamola Bowale, whose expertise and vision will undoubtedly drive Avancee Pinnacle to new heights.

In essence, these strategic initiatives represent a significant paradigm shift for Avancee Pinnacle. By embracing agency banking and harnessing the power of data-driven insights, the company is poised to not only expand its reach but also drive meaningful impact in promoting financial inclusion and empowering underserved communities. Indeed, the future holds immense promise for Avancee Pinnacle as it embarks on this journey of innovation and social change.