The FGB Digest brings you the latest news on the world’s fastest growing direct-to-consumer and challenger brands. In today’s edition: Docandu raising to promote remote healthcare; Uber Eats growing in virus-hit markets; and Covid-19 helps huge e-commerce growth.

Docandu raising to promote remote healthcare

Docandu, an app which allows patients to connect with your doctor or hospital in real-time and share all your medical records in your preferred language, is raising on Crowdcube. 

With a growing user base, Docandu aims to be an all-in-one platform that brings together patients and doctors from anywhere. The global digital health market is estimated to be worth USD$536bn by 2025. 

It’s still early days for Docandu, but they are looking for support to execute on their go-to-market strategy and make a global health ID a reality, by expanding their affiliate network of doctors, health providers and public health systems.

With the coronavirus pandemic affecting lives all over the world, there is no doubt that there will be a strong demand for remote healthcare once this is all over. As people adjust to working from home, they will want to ensure that, should something similar to this ever happen again, they are in a position to access healthcare from their homes.

Uber Eats growing in virus-hit markets

Uber Eats has beefed up grocery delivery options in three markets hard hit by the coronavirus.

Uber’s food delivery division said today it’s inked a partnership with supermarket giant Carrefour in France to provide Parisians with 30 minute home delivery on a range of grocery products, including everyday foods, toiletries and cleaning products.

The service is starting with 15 stores in the city, with Uber Eats  saying it plans to scale it out rapidly nationwide “in the coming weeks”.

In Spain it’s partnered with the Galp service station brand to offer a grocery delivery service that consists of basic foods, over the counter medicines, beverages and cleaning products in 15 cities across eight provinces.

The third market it’s inked deals in is Brazil, where Uber said it’s partnering with a range of pharmacies, convenience stores and pet shops in Sao Paulo to offer home delivery on basic supplies.

“Over the counter medicines will be available from the Pague Menos chain of pharmacies, grocery products from Shell Select convenience stores and pet supplies from Cobasi — one of the largest pet shop chains in the country,” it said.

Covid-19 helps huge e-commerce growth

The coronavirus pandemic is sparking enormous changes in e-commerce over a very short period of time, according to a study from Adobe Analytics.

Average daily online sales for groceries, for example, doubled by the middle of March compared with the start of the month, the study shows. Overall, e-commerce is up 25% over the same period, which compares March 13 to 15 with the first 11 days of the month. Using a longer view, grocery spending now represents 8% of overall e-commerce, up from 6% three years ago, Adobe Analytics said.

While online commerce was already making steady inroads in retail’s market share, the pandemic, which has shut down brick-and-mortar retail, has created a “forcing function” that’s pushing consumers online for all of their needs, said Vivek Pandya, lead analyst for Adobe Digital Insights.

“The performance of the online economy becomes the performance of the retail economy overall,” Pandya said in an interview. “That’s pretty staggering to see happen over such a short period of time.”

The buy-online-pickup-in-store option saw a 62% surge in the 24 February to 21 March period compared with a year earlier, according to Adobe Analytics.

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