How SOSV-backed Achiko pivoted from financial services to health tech during the COVID-19 pandemic

How SOSV-backed Achiko pivoted from financial services to health tech during the COVID-19 pandemic

3 years ago
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https://techcrunch.com/2021/04/01/how-sosv-backed-achiko-pivoted-from-financial-services-to-health-tech-during-the-covid-19-pandemic/

Many companies had to adapt during the COVID-19 pandemic. For SOSV-backed Achiko, this meant shifting its focus from mobile payment services to affordable COVID-19 screening. Achiko’s platform combines an app called Teman Sehat (“Health Buddy” in Indonesian) for payments and keeping test records, and proprietary low-cost testing kits using DNA aptamers, or synthetic strands of DNA, that are cheaper to manufacture than rapid or PCR tests.

The testing kits, formerly code-named Gumnuts and now called Aptamex, were developed in a partnership with Barcelona-based biotech company RegenaCellx.sl and completed the first phase of its clinical validation trials in January, with the goal of moving to production in the second quarter of this year. Teman Sehat, meanwhile, was built on technology that Achiko had developed for a payments aggregator called Mimopay.