Digital health funding indicates steady market
Digital health funding hit $4.3 billion in 2015--on pace with 2014's digital health funding, according to Rock Health.
The start of 2015 had lower funding levels than in 2014, but by the end of the year, there were 278 deals with an average deal size of $15.6 million. Rock Health only includes U.S. deals greater than $2 million, and data go through Dec. 8, 2015.
The average deal size in 2014 was lower--$14.7 million--but there were 294 deals.
Digital health accounted for 7 percent of total venture funding in 2015, a slight decrease from the 8 percent of total venture funding in digital health last year.
In 2015, 247 digital health companies each raised more than $2 million and individual digital health companies also grew with the average number of employees rising from 44 in 2014 to 55 in 2015.
Six deals in 2015 totaled approximately $1 billion--17 percent of all 2015 funding. Those deals were NantHealth , ZocDoc, 23andMe, Helix, Pulse and Collective Health. NantHealth takes the distinction of closing deal at $200 million.
The largest categories within digital health are healthcare consumer engagement at $613 million; wearables and biosensing at $489 million; and personal health tools and tracking at $407 million.
"As we look to 2016, we are optimistic and excited about the growing role of consumer and the consequent B2C opportunities," according to the report.
Editor
Editor Beth earned a bachelor’s degree in journalism and master’s in health communication. She has worked in hospital, academic and publishing settings over the past 20 years. Beth joined TriMed in 2005, as editor of CMIO and Clinical Innovation + Technology. When not covering all things related to health IT, she spends time with her husband and three children.