Vitalls secures $1.5M from EST Growmore for cross-border digital health passport

DUBAI — Vitalls, a UAE-based digital health passport startup, has secured a $1.5 million anchor tranche from EST Growmore, the investment arm of Singapore-based EST Group, with an option for a further $1 million.

The agreement was signed with Dr. Sindhu Bhaskar, chairman of EST Group, and announced at the Abu Dhabi Future Health Summit. The seed round values the company's pitch: letting individuals store, manage and share their medical records across providers and borders through an AI-powered platform.

Vitalls was founded in 2023 by Mehdi Bouchenak. The strategic layer of the deal matters as much as the capital. EST Group brings distribution, product development support and partnership synergies across its telecom and healthcare portfolio, giving Vitalls a channel into markets where patient data remains locked inside individual hospital systems.

The structure, an anchor tranche with a follow-on option, lets the investor scale its exposure as the product proves out, a pattern that has become common for seed cheques from strategic groups entering the region's healthtech market.

Watch whether the option is exercised and which EST Group markets carry the passport first. Gulf states are building national health data exchanges, and a private passport will either plug into them or compete with them.

Wamda first reported the investment.