Analytics, big data draw largest shares of $2 billion digital health funding, Rock Health says
Big data and analytics were top winners in digital health venture funding in the first half of 2016, according to a new Rock Health report that pegs total venture funding so far at more than $2 billion. Population health management, electronic health records and clinical workflow tools also ranked high on the list.
Analytics and big data companies, for instance, raised a combined $300 million in funding.
“This category has been a buzzword in technology for some time, but we continue to be excited about the impact of large-scale data science in healthcare,” Rock Health’s Mitchell Mom and Ashlee Adams wrote in the report.
Following analytics and big data, the top draws of the year so far included: wearables and biosensing, population health management, personal health tools and tracking, EHR and clinical workflow, and digital medical devices.
[Also: Healthcare IT startups to watch in 2016: A running list of big news]
“In a year when everyone expected funding to decline, digital health has been as steady as ever and accounted for a healthy 8 percent of total venture funding,” they noted.
The first half of 2016 had a record-breaking 151 companies raise more than $2 million. NantHealth had the lone IPO, creating almost $1.5 billion in market capitalization.
Jawbone closed the second-largest round of the year, bringing its total amount raised to just under $1billion. The company dropped other business lines to focus on health products.
Roche led Flatiron’s funding, the largest deal of the year at $175 million. There were also late-stage deals for Health Catalyst and Proteus .
Other high profile deals so far this year include Quartet Health, which raised $40 million from Google Ventures, Pathway Genomics, which raised $40 million from IBM. Livongo, Glen Tullman’s startup, raised $49.5 million in a round led by Merck Global Health Innovation Fund.
Rock Health gave a shout out to new investors UPMC and Heritage Group, and noted that stalwarts like GE Ventures and Google Ventures were surprisingly inactive.
Twitter: @Bernie_HITN
Email the writer: bernie.monegain@himssmedia.com
