VC funds for digital health up 33% to record $4 billion in H1
19 July 2017 6:00 PM GMT
Global venture capital funding for healthcare IT or digital health companies in the first half of this year surged to an all-time high of $4 billion by way of 359 deals, translating into a jump of 33 per cent in value terms over the last year, says a report.
According to the Mercom Capital group, in the first half of 2016, the sector in question had seen VC funding worth $3 billion from 286 transactions.
In the April-June quarter, the total corporate funding in health IT companies, including VC, debt, and public market financing, stood at $2.4 billion as against $1.8 billion in the first quarter of 2017.
There were 19 notable Indian VC funding transactions in April-June this year, including fitness smartwatch maker HUG Innovations' raising around $5 million, Grow Fit raising around $4.5 million and healthcare and fitness appmaker CureFit raising $3 million, among others.
"This was the best half and best quarter ever for digital health companies as a result of a few very large deals. We are now comfortably on pace to have the biggest funding year for digital health companies," Mercom Capital group CEO and co- founder Raj Prabhu said.
Prabhu, however, noted that "even with such robust funding, there is still no sign of any digital health IPOs and M&A activity is yet to catch up with the funding momentum".
Top funded categories in the April-June quarter 2017 were patient engagement companies with $669 million, mHealth Apps firms with $325 million, data analytics companies with $264 million, and electronic medical records with $236 million, the report said.
As per the report, the digital health sector has received $22.5 billion in the 3,031 VC funding deals Mercom has tracked since 2010. pti
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