GIF invests in cold chain technology through new climate-health fund.

GIF is pleased to announce our investment in Blackfrog Technologies, a medical device company headquartered in India which is transforming medical grade refrigeration. The $1,000,000 risk capital deal is the first GIF has made from our new climate-health impact fund, Thrive.

Blackfrog has developed Emvólio, a patented rapid cooling technology for safe last-mile transport of vaccines, insulin, breast milk, blood serums, medications and medical specimens with minimal thermal shock. This lightweight, backpack-style, portable temperature-controlled refrigerator, is already helping facilitate the administration of routine vaccines, such as measles, tuberculosis, diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis and hepatitis. Emvólio can also be used for storing and transporting organs and for animal husbandry.

Blackfrog is using innovation to address a huge global development challenge. Gavi estimates that 2.3 million children die every year due to lack of access to vaccines. There are also 18 million ‘zero-dose’ children every year: those who miss out on any vaccination, often because of broken supply chains, and particularly lack of cold chain at the last mile. 

Furthermore, the World Health Organization (WHO) estimates 50% of vaccines go to waste before they are administered, where “wastage in unopened vials is usually attributable to cold chain”. The cost of vaccine wastage due to exposure to temperatures outside the recommended range is estimated at $34.1bn annually, a figure that does not include the physical and financial cost of avoidable illnesses with on-time delivery of effective vaccines.

GIF's investment in Blackfrog Technologies is part of a pre-Series A Funding Round. We are investing alongside Manipal Education and Medical Group (MEMG), one of India's leading medical research, education and healthcare services providers, which is providing follow-on funding of of $350,000. Rainmatter Foundation, the investment arm of Zerodha, one of India's largest brokerage and financial services companies, is also making a new investment of $350,000.

CEO Mayur Shetty co-founded Blackfrog with COO Donson Souza  in 2015, initially growing it within the Manipal Universal Technology Business Incubator, attached to their university.

“The Emvólio is now operational in 800 rural health centres across 16 states in India, including many hard-to-reach areas, and it’s also in use in Nigeria and Kenya,” he explains. 

“We operate both a hardware and software solution. The backpack is hardware equipped with live location tracking, temperature and battery monitoring through IoT and wireless technology. The on-device temperature display and alerts notify users of malfunctions.”

“The MyEmvólio software platform remotely monitors a portfolio of customer Emvólios, and Blackfrog has a larger platform monitoring all Emvólio devices for temperature, uptime/downtime, distance travelled and geo-tagging mapping.”

Investment Director Lily Steele acted as deal lead for the Global Innovation Fund.

“Our aim is to support Blackfrog's growth by building its commercial sales track record and manufacturing, showing the company can convert pilot projects into larger order volumes, and also develop new product lines to serve new markets.” she says. "Blackfrog is exactly the kind of business in which we are looking to back through Thrive, our new $120 million climate-health impact fund which invests exclusively in early- and growth-stage technologies that strengthen public health amidst rising temperatures and extreme weather events."

A joint initiative between GIF and PATH, a leader in global health innovation, Thrive was formally launched on the sidelines of the 78th World Health Assembly in Geneva in May. Levering an innovative finance structure, it is designed to accelerate the adoption and rapid deployment of transformative health innovations in emerging markets through patient capital and knowledge support, enhancing health systems and community resilience. 

Mayur Shetty adds: “Patient capital is absolutely necessary in bringing cutting edge technologies to public health: that's where GIF comes in. Technical assistance is also vital for businesses like ours, and we've been working very closely with PATH on compliance, testing and policy level approvals. Innovation is not supposed to be trapped in a laboratory: the proof of its success is when it saves lives.”