Dawa
LiveWhatsApp-first medicine ordering and delivery
A WhatsApp-first medicine ordering and delivery platform. Customers send a medicine list or a prescription photo, an AI reader plus a licensed pharmacist quote it from a 3,000+ item catalogue, payment is by M-Pesa in the chat, and it is delivered or collected. Prescription items are pharmacist-verified before dispatch.
The story
Dawa meets customers where they already are: WhatsApp. Instead of a new app to download or a website to navigate, you send a medicine list or a photo of a prescription to a number, and a conversation does the rest. It is the same conversational-commerce pattern we build for other clients, applied to a regulated, safety-critical category.
A provider-agnostic AI reader interprets the request and matches it against a 3,000+ item catalogue, strength-aware, brand or generic, tolerant of typos and Swahili; a licensed pharmacist confirms the quote; and the customer pays by M-Pesa without leaving the chat. Prescription-only items are verified by the pharmacist before anything is dispatched. Chronic-refill reminders, zoned delivery, a referral-credit loop, and a Filament admin for orders, stock, and roles complete the loop, with safety screening and prescription gating built into the flow rather than bolted on.
What we built
Concrete features that are in production today. No roadmap items.
WhatsApp ordering
Order from a chat customers already use: a medicine list or a prescription photo, no app to install.
AI medicine matcher
Strength-aware catalogue resolution across brand and generic names, tolerant of typos and Swahili. Fuzzy matches never auto-confirm.
Pharmacist verification
A licensed pharmacist confirms every quote and verifies prescription-only items before dispatch. Prescription gating and safety screening are part of the flow.
M-Pesa in chat
Daraja STK checkout with idempotent callbacks and a reconciliation cron. Pay without leaving the conversation.
Zoned delivery
Same-day across the Nairobi metro and next-day countrywide, routed over founder-owned delivery rails.
Chronic refills
Dose-aware refill timing and reminders so recurring prescriptions never lapse.
What stands out
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