French health insurance company Alan has acquired Tanel, a Dakar-based digital health startup operating across Senegal and Côte d'Ivoire — a deal that closed in June and marks Alan's first-ever move into Africa.
The transaction delivers a full exit to Tanel's backers, including Ventures Platform, AAIC Investment, and a group of angel investors. The acquisition amount was not disclosed.
What makes this deal unusual is not just who is buying — it is where the startup is from. Tanel operates in Francophone West Africa, a region almost entirely absent from Africa's venture exit data.
An Exit That Breaks the Pattern
Research from Ventures Platform and Stears tracking 181 verified venture-backed African exits between 2011 and 2026 found that Nigeria, South Africa, Egypt, and Kenya together accounted for 81% of disclosed exits. A third of those came from financial services. Healthtech startups in Francophone markets do not typically feature in that story.
The timing adds another layer. International acquirers made up 56% of disclosed African exits in 2020. By 2025, that share had dropped to just 33%, as foreign buyers pulled back from the continent. Alan's move runs counter to that trend.
Mouhamed Ndoye, Tanel's CEO and co-founder, told TechCabal that the acquisition was not the original plan. The startup had intended to raise a Series A earlier this year before Alan reached out.
"The plan was to raise the Series A earlier this year, and then Alan reached out, and we ran a dual process. At some point we realised that going through the acquisition with Alan was more interesting for us, given the opportunity to expand across Africa." — Mouhamed Ndoye, CEO, Tanel
The relationship between Alan and Tanel was not new. Tanel had spent two years reporting to Alan as an investor before the acquisition offer arrived — a dynamic that likely accelerated due diligence and trust on both sides.
What Tanel Actually Built
Ndoye and co-founder Makhtar Diop launched Tanel in 2021 with a specific problem in mind: Senegalese employers were still managing employee health coverage largely on paper. The founders had previously attempted to fix healthcare delivery through in-home primary care and prescription delivery, but ran into missing infrastructure at every turn.
Their solution was to build that infrastructure themselves. Tanel started with pharmacy management software and expanded across the full patient journey. Critically, it operates as a licensed insurer — meaning it carries the insurance risk directly rather than acting as an administrator on top of another underwriter's policy, a distinction that sets it apart from many African healthtech startups.
Tanel sells health plans primarily to employers for their staff and has built its own contracted network across both Senegal and Côte d'Ivoire. Patients can access care directly without paying upfront and waiting for reimbursement.
By the time of the acquisition, Tanel covered approximately 70,000 lives across more than 400 companies, connected to over 1,200 pharmacies and healthcare providers. Around 30,000 of those covered are paying customers, with each policy extending to a spouse and children. Ndoye confirmed Tanel was profitable in 2025, though he declined to share revenue figures. At the time of closing, Senegal contributed 90% of revenue and Côte d'Ivoire the remaining 10%.
Lean Capital, Big Reach
Tanel reached that scale on a relatively modest fundraise. The startup raised a total of $2.45 million across two rounds — a pre-seed of $350,000 and a seed round of $2.1 million in 2024. That is lean by the standards of most startups that attract European acquirers.
Both Ndoye and Diop are staying on after the acquisition, which suggests Alan is treating Tanel as a foundation for broader African expansion rather than a simple technology or talent acquisition. The deal, modest in disclosed details but significant in what it signals, shows that digital health companies do not need to be headquartered in Lagos or Nairobi to attract serious international interest.
For Francophone West Africa's startup ecosystem, that point alone might be the most consequential part of this story.