Cameroon’s Waspito wins $250k prize money at LEAP event in Saudi Arabia

Cameroonian e-health startup Waspito has won the US$250,000 Grand LEAP Award at the LEAP 2026 conference in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

Founded by Jean Lobe Lobe in 2020, Waspito connects users with medical doctors via instant video consultations from their smartphones. It also provides mobile laboratory services, with a lab technician collecting samples from a user’s home and results received digitally.  

At the annual LEAP tech conference, which awards US$1 million in equity-free prizes across seven categories, the startup won the Grand LEAP Award, securing the largest individual prize at US$250,000.

The platform currently connects about 1.1 million patients with 2,100 doctors and more than 500 healthcare providers across Cameroon and Ivory Coast. The startup raised US$2.5 million in funding in November 2023, extending its seed round to US$5.2 million in order to expand in existing markets and launch in new ones.