Acumen Fund, a nonprofit global venture fund addressing poverty in South Asia and East Africa, today announced an investment in Sproxil, Inc., a company that provides a Mobile Product Authentication™ (MPA™) solution that enables consumers to verify that the pharmaceutical product they are buying is genuine. The $1.8 million investment aims to help Sproxil to build its sales teams in the U.S. and Nigeria; to begin Sproxil’s expansion into India and Kenya; and to provide further improvements to the technology.

“With a decade of experience, Acumen Fund continues to invest in innovative businesses that have the potential to improve millions of lives and revolutionize emerging industries,” said Jacqueline Novogratz, CEO, Acumen Fund. “Sproxil will help combat the multi-billion dollar counterfeit drug market, empower customers and give them the resources to make informed pharmaceutical purchasing decisions. We will also gain key insights into the dynamics and possibilities of mobile technology, an increasingly critical tool for improving the lives of billions in the developing world, which we can then share with the community at large.”

In 2008 Dr. Ashifi Gogo, a Holekamp Family Ph.D. Innovation Fellow at Dartmouth College who grew up in Ghana, founded Sproxil. He incorporated the company in 2009 with the mission to make it harder for pharmaceutical counterfeiters to operate.