Alan enters Africa with Tanel acquisition, targets €600m West African health insurance market

Alan, a global prevention-focused health insurance company, has entered Africa through the acquisition of Senegalese digital health company Tanel, giving the French firm a foothold in a West African insurance market it estimates at nearly €600 million.

The deal marks Alan’s first African expansion and gives it an established healthcare platform spanning Senegal and Côte d’Ivoire, two markets where it sees insurance growing by about 10 percent annually.

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Rather than building a market presence from scratch, Alan is using Tanel’s existing customer base, healthcare network and local regulatory knowledge to accelerate its expansion. Tanel serves about 70,000 members across more than 400 companies and connects users to more than 1,200 pharmacies and healthcare providers.

The acquisition comes as African healthcare companies increasingly look beyond basic digitisation toward platforms that combine insurance, healthcare access and preventive services. Alan plans to introduce its technology and preventive healthcare model through Tanel, including telehealth and other digital health services.

“We are building in Africa from a strong base,” Jean-Charles Samuelian-Werve, co-founder and chief executive officer of Alan, said, adding that Tanel had already built the local relationships needed to navigate healthcare systems, customers and regulators.

The company’s longer-term ambition is significantly larger. Alan and Tanel plan to reach more than one million members across Africa by 2030, initially strengthening their operations in Senegal and Côte d’Ivoire before moving into English-speaking markets in West and East Africa.

For Alan, the strategy represents a shift from its established European markets into a region where healthcare remains highly fragmented and access to insurance and digital services is uneven. The company currently has more than 1.2 million members across France, Spain, Belgium and Canada.

Tanel’s founders, Mouhamed Ndoye and Makhtar Diop, will continue to run its operations and lead Alan’s African development, with the full Tanel team retained.

The transaction also provides an exit for Tanel’s founders and early investors, including Ventures Platform and AAIC Investment. Dotun Olowoporoku, managing partner at Ventures Platform, described the transaction as an important milestone for Francophone Africa, where technology exits remain relatively uncommon.

For the African healthtech market, the significance of the deal extends beyond the acquisition itself. Tanel’s sale provides evidence that locally built healthcare technology companies can become strategic entry points for international health businesses seeking growth on the continent.

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Alan’s challenge now will be converting Tanel’s local infrastructure into a broader regional platform while adapting its prevention-led insurance model to markets with different regulatory systems, healthcare networks and levels of insurance penetration.

The company is betting that combining technology with established local healthcare relationships can help it scale faster than a standalone market entry and turn a €600 million regional insurance opportunity into the starting point for a much larger African healthcare business.

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