At least 68 digital health companies have raised $2 million or more so far this year for a total of $675 million in digital health investments, according to a new report by healthcare accelerator Rock Health.
Look closer, though. Five companies accounted for nearly 40 percent of those total dollars.
It’s clear that patient shopping tools and home health technologies are where the big bets are going. Here’s the breakdown of the Big 5 deals:
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1. Castlight Health: $100 million. Castlight is creating digital tools that help patients find doctors, learn how good the practitioners are and get to the bottom of the actual cost of services. It helps employers and health plans by promoting better health and providing a transparency healthcare customers now expect.
Soon after the fundraise, new Castlight President John Driscoll said: “Healthcare has systematically underinvested in technology and software. One of the reasons why we feel like we need to raise a lot of capital is because there’s a lot of opportunity to invest in tools, technologies and services.”
2. GoHealth: $50 million. GoHealth is more of a pure consumer healthcare shopping site than Castlight, which has a little more emphasis on the business side along with patients. In this case, GoHealth offers insurance quotes with the option to talk with a broker to better sort out choices. The round was done in part to brace for the upcoming U.S. Supreme Court verdict on healthcare reform.
Approval of the individual mandate could mean a massive influx of customers — and opportunity — for GoHealth.
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3. Kinnser Software: $39.9 million. The 9-year-old company has become a regular on the Inc. list of fastest-growing companies thanks to home healthcare software that offers real-time patient tracking and cuts down on logistics by displaying patients’ records on a laptop or tablet. They took the new investment — their first — to accelerate product development.
4. AirStrip Technologies: $39 million. AirStrip has actually announced two investments this year — one from Qualcomm Life soon after they announced a partnership together, and the other as part of a partnership deal with HCA. The company makes mobile solutions that allows anytime access to real-time patient monitoring data from a nurse’s notes to pulse. Among the future goals: developing software that helps manage home care of chronic diseases.
5. Valence Health: $30 million. Valence, which literally announced its investment last week, mixes its own data-management and analysis technology with a consulting service. The investment from North Bridge Growth Equity will be used to aggressively grow the company’s technology and marketing efforts, and includes the formation of a board of directors that includes the former CEOs of UnitedHealth Group and AtlantiCare.
[Photo courtesy of Flickr user bangli 1]
