If you want to see where the big money is going in healthcare these days, digital health products are the place to look. Digital health startups raised $11.5 billion in 2017, up 27 percent over 2016, according to the StartUp Health Insights Year End Report.
Digital health startups are doing everything from enhancing patient-provider relationships to streamlining workflows within health systems, and they’re raising a lot of money along the way.
The influx of cash for a digital health startup ranges from $1 million up to $100 million. Even more exciting, early-stage deals made up 65 percent of the total deal activity. Series A funding was 36 percent of the total funding, and seed funding made up 29 percent of the total funding. Series D funding increased from 2 percent in 2016 to 4 percent in 2017.
Digital health products are compelling in a few ways, particularly to investors. They meet a similar schedule of investment to other digital technology products aimed at consumers, and they won’t require the level of regulatory rigor demanded by traditional and even connected medical devices.
They also serve a real need in healthcare. Many of the startups on this list aim to help patients get connected to physicians or to patient communities, and give them access to a complete body of care. Others work to generate population health data or prioritize physician workflow and integration with payers to improve the standards of care.
The editors of Medical Design & Outsourcing can’t ignore such a huge focus of funding, We also wanted to share the digital startups we think are interesting before they get bought by Apple, Google or Amazon. All the companies selected for this list are less than 5 years old and either in seed or series A funding rounds. However, many are already doing pilot studies to expand services and entering into agreements with big providers and payers.
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