Covid-19 brought a flurry of attention and money to the healthcare industry, but healthcare tech was heating up even before the pandemic. In 2018, health tech startups raised $21.3 billion in funding in a total of 2,249 deals. Things have only escalated since, with 3,315 health tech deals grossing $50 billion last year, according to PitchBook.
Healthtech has also weathered the market storm much better than other sectors this year. “We haven’t seen things get too bad due to volatility and public markets. Clearly, some valuations are down. But the space is still quite robust,” says Rebecca Springer, senior healthcare analyst at PitchBook.
We’ve compiled a list of the biggest health tech marketers – some industry pioneers, some rising stars. These investors have been active in PitchBook’s largest health technology deals over the past five years. They think big and invest even more. Both Hemant Taneja and Beth Seidenberg were early investors in Livongo, which was sold to Teladoc Health for $18.5 billion in the biggest health tech acquisition ever. Vijay Pande, head of life sciences at Andreessen Horowitz, led the $300 million Series B funding round for Devoted Health, a digital health startup focused on Medicare beneficiaries. OAK HC/FT’s Annie Lamont was the biggest investor in cloud health startup Athenahealth at the time of its IPO; it was sold last year for $17 billion.
The growing role of technology companies in an area as sensitive and vital as health obviously raises many questions. A16z’s Pande compared health care for the next twenty years to finances for the past twenty years. “If we go back in time to the 2000s, and we’re on Wall Street talking about computers doing what a human being does, people would say that’s ridiculous,” he says. “It’s not that there won’t be doctors twenty years from now, just like there are people on Wall Street, it’s just now that they’ll be supercharged with tools that will be transformational.”
Although healthcare is a niche industry, I was struck by the range of backgrounds among the successful investors on the list. Some were formally trained as doctors or researchers, but others learned the ins and outs of the healthcare landscape over the years from the corporate side. When it comes to advising healthcare startups, a variety of perspectives are key: “I’ve spoken with founders who are physicians trying to solve a clinical problem they recognized in their training or in their own practice, but they don’t. I don’t really understand the business side of things,” says Springer. “It’s not just that you have to have knowledge of medicine, there’s a whole extra level of skills you need to add on top of that.”
Beth Seidenberg of Westlake BioPartners was a medical doctor and completed her training at the National Institute of Health with none other than Anthony Fauci (a “great guy” himself), then became a pharmaceutical executive for twenty years before trying her hand. to invest. Annie Lamont came from the opposite end of the spectrum. Lamont fell in love with venture capital in the 1980s, then focused on health care. “There was nobody else focusing on it,” she says. “So I made that kind of my expertise and my practice.”
Baillie Gifford’s Peter Singlehurst is the only true generalist investor on the list, but he argues that’s a strength, not a hindrance when his private investment team spots a health-tech company. “There seems to be a general consensus that specialist investors are in healthcare and non-specialist investors can’t do everything else. We don’t believe that’s true,” he said.
All of the investors on the list have specific and ambitious goals to transform the healthcare industry. However, many have also been transparent about the efforts we still need to make, and they have not claimed that technology alone can fix the failings of our current system.
“We’re only in round three of health tech, so there’s a lot to do to really reverse the trends of rising health care costs and poor outcomes,” says investor Sofia Guerra. at Bessemer Ventures.
Read the full list here.
Lucy Brewer
Twitter: @lucyrbrewster
E-mail: lucille.brewster@fortune.com
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Jackson Fordyce curated the deals section of today’s newsletter.
CORPORATE OFFERS
– deep instincta New York-based cybersecurity firm, raised $62.5 million in funding. black rock led the round and was joined by investors including Chrysalis Investments, Millenniumand Unbound.
– DataGuarda Munich-based data privacy, information security and compliance platform for small and medium-sized businesses and large enterprises, raised €61 million ($59.98 million) in Series B funding . Morgan Stanley Expansion Capital led the round and was joined by A peak.
– Theorya remote gaming studio, raised $50 million in Series B funding. Creators Funds led the round and was joined by investors including NEA and a16z.
– AI luminous fluxa Walnut, Calif.-based financial intelligence platform for small businesses to manage their cash flow, raised $15m in Series A funding led by Haymaker Ventures.
– Reply.ioa Kuala Lumpur-based conversational commerce platform, raised $7 million in funding. Big title led the round and was joined by investors including Altair Capital, Clever Partnership capital, Sterling Oak Groupand Calendula Ventures.
– bitgreena New York-based climate investment blockchain platform, raised $5 million in funding through the crowdfunding platform Republic.
– Headquartera Singapore-based financial management platform for Web3 teams, raised $5m in pre-seed funding co-led by Crypto.com Capital, Forging companiesand Mass Mutual Ventures.
– [untitled]a New York-based music creation and collaboration platform, raised $4.6 million in seed funding. General Catalyst, The Mirror Capital, Shard Capital, Capital not boringand other angels.
– Boddle Learninga Tulsa, Okla.-based educational games company raised $3 million in seed funding. Alpine Adventures led the round and was joined by investors including KCRiseFund, Attention Capital, Lightship Capital, Cortado Ventures, The Rise of the Remnantand others.
– Surgea San Francisco-based treatment company for patients undergoing surgery, raised $2.6 million in pre-seed funding co-led by CVHC and Venture Partners Shop.
– Metrean Oakland-based metabolic health platform, raised $1 million in pre-seed funding led by Michael Adams, John Broderickand other angels.
PRIVATE CAPITAL
– clover capital acquired a majority stake in AnswerLab, an independent UX research company based in New York. Financial terms were not disclosed.
EXITS
– BlackRock Long Term Private Capital agreed to acquire a controlling interest in Oral Health Paradigma Lincoln, Neb.-based oral surgery and digital dentistry platform from InTandem Capital Partners. Financial terms were not disclosed.
– Zelis acquired Payer’s Compassa medical billing company based in Plano, Texas, of Spectrum equity and Healthcare company partners. Financial terms were not disclosed.
IPOS
– CALBa battery supplier for electric vehicle makers based in Jiangsu, China, plans to raise up to HK$13.6 billion ($1.7 billion) in an initial public offering in Hong Kong.
after-sales service
– Limited PlayUpa Sydney-based online betting operator, has agreed to go public through a merger with IG Acquisition Corp., a SPAC. A deal values the company at $350 million.
FUNDS + FUNDS OF FUNDS
– HarbourVest Partnersa Boston-based investment firm, has raised more than $3 billion for its twelfth fund focused on buyout, micro-buyout, venture capital and growth equity investments through partnership investing .
PEOPLE
– Edison Partnersa Princeton, New Jersey-based growth capital firm promoted Kelly Ford to the COO.