N.009HealthcareFeb 14, 202612 min

Why mid-tier hospitals are Africa's next durable bet

The middle is where corporate HMO demand is growing fastest.

The premium tier is crowded with a handful of players competing for the same insured patients. The mass tier is capital-starved and structurally unfundable. The middle — mid-tier general hospitals serving corporate HMO patients — is where the volume is growing fastest and where capital-disciplined operators can build something durable.

We built our healthcare arm around a hub-and-spoke model: a mid-tier anchor hospital in each city, surrounded by asset-light specialty centres that feed referral volume up. Underneath both layers sits a captive surgical-supply distribution arm that protects margin and controls inventory.

This note lays out why we think that structure is more fundable, more replicable, and more defensible than a single flagship asset — and why we are building it slowly rather than trying to scale it overnight.

By The team