Health IT, Startups

Health 2.0’s fight with CB Insights and what it reveals about digital health investment data

A CB Insights report analyzing five years of digital health investments set off a Twitter debate last week when Matthew Holt of Health 2.0 took issue with CB Insights' 2014 stats. It also raised the question of what the difference in investment amounts means.

A CB Insights report analyzing five years of digital health investments set off an almighty din on Twitter last week when Matthew Holt, the co-chairman of Health 2.0, which also publishes digital health analysis, took issue with CB Insights’ 2014 stats.

CB Insights’ report tallied up quarterly investments in digital health at about $3.7 billion. CB Insights CEO Anand Sanwal said in an email that its figures were lower than the likes of Health 2.0, Rock Health and StartUp Health because it focused on venture capital investments. He added it didn’t include investments from sovereign wealth funds, hedge, and mutual funds in that particular report, although it does collect that information.

But although Rock Health and Health 2.0 calculated that digital health investments amounted to more than $4 billion, Mercom Capital’s calculations amounted to $4.7 billion for health IT investments. StartUp Health reckoned it was more like $6.5 billion, but StartUp Health tends to take a loose definition of digital health, as it pointed out in its report:

We have a broad view of digital health and believe that the current trend is a cross-pollination of technology and data with all aspects of health and healthcare. StartUp Health InsightsTM tracks companies that enable health, wellness and the delivery of care through data / analytics, sensors, mobile, internet-of-things, and genomics / personalized medicine. Investments in sub-sectors are not mutually exclusive as deals are tagged with multiple sub-sectors.

So which source is right or, as one colleague framed it, which number
best tells the story of digital health’s investment and growth? The trouble with digital health is it has become such an elastic term that it can be as limited or broad as the company interpreting the data desires. A smartphone diagnostic? Digital health. Big data health analytics? Digital health.

Although I respect CB Insights and it’s helpful that it quantifies its information, StartUp Health’s figure reflects the enormous scope of digital health and just how much it has grown.

Social media isn’t for the faint of heart but the tweet theater created on it makes for some amusing chatter and occasionally revealing insights.

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