Healthcare supply chains don't suffer from lack of supply. They suffer from lack of intelligence. Yahya Aqel is building the fix.
Somewhere in Amman right now, a pharmacist is placing a medication order through an AI that already knows what they need before they ask. That quiet moment - automated, optimized, frictionless - is the product of Yahya Aqel's last decade. He didn't set out to fix the world's drug supply. He just noticed that a billion-dollar market was still running on fax machines and phone calls, and decided to do something about it.
Aqel is the co-founder and CEO of Aumet, the B2B healthcare marketplace that connects over 12,000 pharmacies in Jordan, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia with more than 1,000 pharmaceutical suppliers. As of May 2026, the platform has processed over $1 billion in gross merchandise value and completed five million transactions a year. The $12 million Series A it just closed - led by Emkan Capital with participation from Qatar Development Bank, SABAH VC, and AAIC - puts the company on a trajectory toward the GCC's entire healthcare ecosystem and markets beyond.
The goal is not to be a marketplace. The goal is to be the procurement brain of global healthcare. Aumet's "Pulse" platform already integrates inventory management, AI-driven demand forecasting, and an automated ordering engine into one cloud-based system. For hospitals, the "Enterprise" tier goes further: a cognitive procurement operating system deployed across 32 hospitals, 500+ medical centers, and 18+ medical warehouses - including Jordan's Ministry of Health.
What makes Aqel unusual among healthtech founders is the depth of his operational background. Before Aumet, he ran Al-Sumow International, a medical manufacturer in Kuwait that was eventually acquired. He built Aqel Universal Medical Equipment, serving Gulf markets with disposable healthcare products. He founded Healthy Brain, an e-commerce platform for medical products. He co-founded OnEx, a distribution platform for healthcare manufacturers. Five companies. Two successful exits. By the time he sat down at IE Business School in Madrid in 2014, he had already lived most of what he was about to theorize.
The Airbnb case study changed his trajectory. Reading about two-sided marketplaces in an Entrepreneurship Management class, he asked a quiet question: what if pharmacies and pharmaceutical distributors could find each other the same way? The idea that became Aumet was born in that Madrid classroom. After graduating in 2015, he moved to Silicon Valley, secured funding from 500 Global (then 500 Startups), then relocated to France before eventually returning to the region where the need was clearest.
Aqel graduated from Hashemite University in Jordan in 2006 with a degree in biomedical engineering. His first job was at Al-Sumow International in Kuwait, a medical manufacturer he would eventually help grow into an acquisition target. By 2011 he was a co-founder again - this time with Aqel Universal, manufacturing disposable healthcare products for Gulf region hospitals.
Three healthcare businesses before his MBA. None of them tech. When he enrolled at IE Business School in Madrid in 2014, he wasn't looking to pivot - he was looking to understand what he'd already been doing. The MBA changed the framing. An Airbnb case study surfaced the marketplace model; the rest followed from there.
After graduation, the path wasn't straight. Silicon Valley. Then France. The idea that became Aumet traveled through two continents before landing back in the Middle East. In 2020, Aumet was accepted into Techstars. The COVID-19 pandemic hit weeks later - a crisis that revealed exactly how fragile and analog pharmaceutical supply chains were across MENA. Aqel pivoted the model and accelerated.
The pivot worked. By 2023, Aumet had raised a $7M pre-Series A and was processing hundreds of millions in annual marketplace transactions. By 2026, that number had crossed $1 billion - and the platform that started with two-sided pharmacy connections had become something far more structural: an AI operating system for how healthcare economies procure drugs.
Aumet isn't one product - it's a layered infrastructure for healthcare procurement, from the corner pharmacy to the national ministry.
Cloud-based inventory management with AI-driven procurement automation. Pulse tells pharmacies what to order, when to order it, and routes the order to the right supplier - automatically. 12,000+ pharmacies run on it today.
Centralized procurement intelligence for multi-branch pharmacy operations. One view across every location, every supplier, every order - enabling buying efficiency at scale while keeping individual branches nimble.
A cognitive procurement OS deployed across 32 hospitals, 500+ medical centers, and 18+ warehouses. Partners include Jordan's Ministry of Health, the Ministry of Digital Economy, and Abu Dhabi AI firm Presight. Al-Basheer Hospital - Jordan's largest - was the first deployment.
A healthcare marketplace sounds simple until you understand what clearing a pharmaceutical transaction requires. Drug availability varies by country, distributor, and shelf. Regulatory requirements differ across borders. Payment infrastructure is often non-existent or fragmented. Pharmacists in Amman and Cairo and Riyadh have historically ordered drugs the way their fathers did - by phone, by catalog, by trust.
Aumet didn't just digitize the order form. It connected 1,000+ verified suppliers to pharmacies in real time, built in AI demand forecasting so that a pharmacy in a low-income neighborhood of Amman gets the same inventory optimization that a flagship hospital chain does, and layered in automated invoicing, payment processing, and ERP integration so that pharmacists spend less time on administration and more time with patients.
The network effect is where it gets interesting. At 12,000 pharmacies and 5 million annual transactions, Aumet has real-time visibility into drug consumption patterns across three countries. That data - anonymized, aggregated - is what powers the AI. And that AI is what Aqel argues can prevent drug shortages before they happen, not just respond to them after.
In a region where medication stockouts have historically been treated as acts of God, that's a structural claim. Aqel is betting it's an engineering problem.
Series A investors: Emkan Capital, Qatar Development Bank (QDB), SABAH VC, AAIC, Shorooq Partners, Right Side Capital Management. Strategic: Cigalah Group, Salehiya Trading Company.
"Healthcare supply chains don't suffer from lack of supply - they suffer from lack of intelligence. At Aumet, we are building the AI-first operating system that powers procurement decisions."
On Aumet's mission, Series A announcement, 2026"Always look for the win-win strategy. Before seeking ways to win yourself, prioritize finding ways for others to win."
IE Business School Alumni Interview"Prioritize building a good business with solid revenue. When successful, investors will naturally be drawn to you."
On investment strategy, IE Alumni Story"The healthcare industry's biggest challenge is not supply shortages, but the lack of intelligence across procurement systems."
Arab Founders interview, 2026EY Entrepreneur of the Year - Named in 2019, recognizing leadership in healthcare entrepreneurship across the MENA region.
World Economic Forum Top 100 - Aumet recognized among the top 100 rising companies globally, 2017 and 2019.
Techstars Alumnus - Selected for Techstars 2020 cohort, among the most competitive startup accelerators globally.
Featured in Inc. & TechCrunch - Press coverage for building MENA's largest B2B healthcare marketplace.
$21.84M raised - From 500 Global, Shorooq Partners, Emkan Capital, QDB, and major GCC strategic investors.
Ministry of Health deployment - Aumet's Enterprise AI Procurement OS operates at scale within Jordan's national health system.
The concept for Aumet came from an Airbnb case study in a Madrid classroom - not from a frustration in a hospital or pharmacy. Sometimes the best domain expertise is borrowed from a completely different domain.
Aqel was already a three-time healthcare entrepreneur when he enrolled for his MBA. His previous ventures were all in hardware, manufacturing, and distribution - zero software. Aumet was his first tech company.
He lived across three continents while building Aumet: Silicon Valley first, then Paris, before returning to Jordan and Saudi Arabia. The company he was building had to be near the customers who needed it most.
Aumet's first Enterprise deployment was Al-Basheer Hospital - Jordan's largest - before the platform scaled to Jordan's entire Ministry of Health. Starting with the biggest hospital in the country is a bold pilot strategy.
At $1B in annual GMV with 12,000 pharmacies, Aumet processes roughly $83,000 in pharmaceutical transactions per pharmacy per year - a meaningful fraction of what a community pharmacy turns over in MENA markets.
Aqel describes himself as "fundamentally transformed" since 2015 - to the degree that he'd be incompatible with his pre-MBA self. The MBA didn't teach him the business; it changed how he saw the problem.