Seed Investment Round · 2026

MagnaStep

High-performance magnetic sport prosthetics, built for Africa. Making adaptive athletics accessible to every young amputee in sub-Saharan Africa — regardless of income, geography, or circumstance.

B-Corp Certified Kigali, Rwanda Impact Investing Series Seed
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The Problem

A generation locked out of sport.

Young amputees in sub-Saharan Africa are physically capable of competing. They have the aspiration, the drive, and the body. What they don't have is access to the technology that would let them try.

The world's best magnetic prosthetics exist — but they cost between $15,000 and $70,000, and are fitted only at specialist clinics in Europe and North America. For a 17-year-old in Kigali, that barrier might as well be a wall.

30–40M
People with mobility impairment in sub-Saharan Africa — majority under age 35 (WHO, 2022)
$15K–70K
Cost of a high-performance prosthetic. Average Rwandan annual income: ~$900
0
Specialist magnetic prosthetics fitting centres across the entire African continent
<2%
Of people needing prosthetic devices in low-income countries who actually receive them (WHO, 2024)
Market Opportunity

Massive, underserved, and growing.

$1.8B
TAM — Africa Prosthetics
Total addressable market for prosthetic devices across sub-Saharan Africa by 2030. Growth driven by rising amputee population, expanding middle class, and increased government disability spending (WHO, World Bank — estimate).
$220M
SAM — Sport Prosthetics
Serviceable addressable market: young amputees (15–35) with sporting aspirations in Rwanda, Uganda, and Kenya. Estimated 1.1M individuals; 20% with active interest in sport.
$28M
SOM — 5-Year Target
MagnaStep's serviceable obtainable market in the first five years: 7,000 devices at $3,000–$4,000 average selling price, targeting the highest-aspiration segment first.

* Market sizing based on WHO Global Disability Report 2023, World Bank disability data, and regional athletic federation participation figures. All figures are estimates for illustrative purposes.

The Solution

Three parts. One complete answer.

🧲

The Device — MagnaStep Sport Prosthetic

Modular magnetic coupling with swappable sport-specific ends: running blade, board binding, cycling clip. Designed for African climate, terrain, and body profiles. Target price: $2,000–$4,000 — a fraction of Western equivalents.

🤝

The Network — Embedded Fitting Partners

We don't build clinics from scratch. We embed within existing disability services and rehabilitation centres across Rwanda, Uganda, and Kenya — training local technicians, leveraging existing trust and patient relationships.

🏃

The Pathway — Sports Inclusion Programme

Partnerships with national football federations, athletics boards, and schools. Adaptive athletes train alongside able-bodied peers — same clubs, same coaches, same competitions. Clear pathway from local club to Paralympic qualification.

Athlete in motion

"The technology only makes sense if the sporting aspiration exists. That aspiration is our market."

— MagnaStep Founding Thesis
Business Model

Commercially viable.
Socially essential.

Device Sales (Sliding Scale)
Patients pay on income-adjusted pricing. Gap funded through impact grants. No one turned away for inability to pay in Year 1–2.
Core
NGO & Impact Investor Grants
R&D funding and market entry subsidies from disability-focused foundations and impact funds.
Catalyst
Sports Organisation Partnerships
Clubs and federations pay a programme fee for MagnaStep-certified inclusive coaching integration.
Scale
Government / Disability Contracts
National disability services in Rwanda, Uganda, Kenya as anchor procurement partners by Year 3.
Scale

Price Comparison

Western equivalent $15,000–$70,000
MagnaStep target $2,000–$4,000
Up to 94% cheaper than Western equivalents ($2K–$4K vs $15K–$70K), achieved through regional supply chains, modular architecture, and local manufacturing partnerships — performance equivalence pending clinical validation.
5-Year Revenue Targets
Year 1 (Pilot — 50 devices) €150K
Year 2 (400 devices) €1.1M
Year 3 (1,500 devices) €3.8M
Year 5 (7,000 devices) €18M+
Roadmap

From pilot to platform.

Now — Q4 2026
Seed & Prototype
Secure seed funding. Complete device prototype with 3 local orthopaedic engineers in Kigali. Sign letters of intent with 2 disability service partners in Rwanda.
Q1–Q2 2027
Pilot — 50 Athletes
Fit 50 athletes across Rwanda. Train 8 local technicians. Launch MagnaStep-certified coaching programme with Rwandan Athletics Federation. Collect 12-month clinical outcomes data.
2027–2028
Expand — Uganda & Kenya
Enter Uganda and Kenya markets. Partner with 6 disability service organisations. Launch school-based adaptive athletics programmes in 30 schools. First MagnaStep athletes compete at national level.
2029–2030
Scale — 7,000 Devices
Regional manufacturing facility. Expand to 5 additional African markets. First cohort qualifies for international adaptive competition. Series A raise targeting €15M for continental scale.
Why We'll Win
0
Direct competitors No other company targets magnetic sport prosthetics specifically for sub-Saharan Africa at an affordable price point.
94%
Cost reduction Regional supply chains and modular design make this price point achievable ($2K–$4K vs $15K–$70K Western equivalents). Performance equivalence pending clinical validation.
3+
Embedded distribution channels Disability services, sports federations, and schools eliminate the need for cold customer acquisition.
B-Corp
Protected mission B-Corp certification legally protects the social mission as the company scales and receives institutional investment.
The Investment Ask

€2M Seed Round

We are raising €2 million to prove the model works — fitting 50 athletes, building the clinical evidence base, and establishing the regional supply chain that will unlock the full market.

40%
€800K — Device R&D
Complete the MagnaStep prototype, conduct clinical testing with 50 pilot athletes, and localise manufacturing across 3 regional supply chain partners.
35%
€700K — Market Entry
Partner development across 6 disability services in Rwanda and Uganda. Train 15 local fitting technicians. Launch school-based coaching programme.
25%
€500K — Operations
Core team salaries (CEO, CTO, Country Directors), legal costs for B-Corp certification, regulatory compliance, and 18 months operational runway.

"This is not charity. This is the most defensible, scalable prosthetics business on the continent — and we're building it from the inside out."

YCombinator Techstars Dogpatch Labs BlackRock Capital
The Team

Built by people who
know the terrain.

A founding team rooted in East Africa, with the clinical, engineering, and business expertise to make this work — and an advisory board that challenges every assumption.

Amara Uwimana
Amara Uwimana
CEO & Co-Founder
Former disability policy advisor to the Rwanda Ministry of Health. 8 years building inclusive sport programmes across East Africa. Adaptive athlete.
Dr. Emmanuel Habimana
Dr. Emmanuel Habimana
CTO & Co-Founder
Biomedical engineer. PhD in prosthetics design (Stellenbosch University). 6 years at Össur on magnetic coupling systems. Returned to Rwanda in 2024.
Grace Nakamura
Grace Nakamura
Country Director — Rwanda
10 years managing disability rehabilitation networks across Rwanda and Uganda. Former UNAPD regional coordinator. Speaks Kinyarwanda, Luganda, and English.
Dr. Josiane Murekatete
Dr. Josiane Murekatete
Clinical Lead
Orthopaedic specialist, University of Rwanda. 12 years clinical practice in prosthetics fitting and rehabilitation. Certified in EU Medical Device Regulation.
Kwame Asante
Kwame Asante
Marketing & Community
Built the African Paralympic Committee's social media from 2K to 180K followers. Documentary filmmaker. Disability sport advocate based in Kigali.
Sarah Okonkwo
Sarah Okonkwo
CFO
Former impact investment analyst at Acumen Fund. Structured impact-linked debt facilities across 6 African markets. CFA charterholder.

Advisory Board

Prof. James Cairns — Prosthetics (UCL) Ingrid Sørensen — Paralympic Coach (Norway) Dr. Fatou Diallo — Disability Rights Advocate Marcus Reid — Impact VC (Novastar Ventures) Aisha Kamau — Regulatory Counsel (MDR + NICA)
Lessons Learned

What building MagnaStep taught us.

Reflections on running an AI-driven innovation pipeline from story to solution — what surprised us, what we'd change, and what we know now that we didn't before.

01
Story is strategy, not decoration.
Starting with Amara's story — a real human need — forced every subsequent decision to stay grounded in the user, not the technology. The best product decisions came from asking "what would this mean for Amara?", not "what does the tech allow?"
02
AI amplifies thinking, not replaces it.
The pipeline produced impressive outputs quickly — but every output needed human judgement to decide what to keep, what to discard, and where the AI had drifted from the brief. The quality ceiling was set by how well we guided the model, not how capable it was.
03
Context loss between agents is the biggest risk.
Each handoff in the pipeline risked losing the nuance of what came before. A researcher's careful framing could be reduced to a headline by the time it reached the designer. Explicit handoff documents with "what matters and why" proved more effective than raw outputs.
04
Constraints produce better design than freedom.
Setting specific constraints — B-Corp, Rwanda-only first, no new clinics — forced creative solutions within real parameters. Open-ended prompts produced generic outputs. Tight, specific briefs produced original ones.
05
The ethical risks are easier to name than to address.
It was straightforward to identify GDPR risks, EU AI Act implications, and trust gaps in the pipeline. Actually designing mitigation into the product — consent mechanisms, explainability, data minimisation — required significant extra design effort that AI alone could not do.
06
Hallucination is a design problem, not just a technical one.
The AI pipeline generated convincing-sounding statistics and claims that needed careful fact-checking. The lesson: treat every AI-generated fact as a hypothesis until verified. Build verification into the workflow, not as an afterthought — especially in a healthcare context where errors cause real harm.
07
Inclusive design is harder to get right than to aspire to.
Designing for users with disabilities, across languages, on low-bandwidth mobile connections, required explicit design decisions at every stage — not just good intentions. WCAG 2.1 AA is a minimum, not a ceiling. True accessibility requires testing with real users, which no AI pipeline can substitute for.

MagnaStep was developed as part of the H9CEAI module, MSc AI in Business, National College of Ireland, 2026.

Fin

Every dream
deserves a
first step.

MagnaStep is looking for investors who believe that access to sport is not a luxury — it's a right. Join us.

hello@magnastep.io magnastep.io Kigali, Rwanda · April 2026