Digital health investment smashes the ceiling: $9.4 bn invested through 3rd Q

$9.4 bn is a whole lot of bubbly! To no one’s surprise in the industry, kick-started by telehealth, Rock Health’s tracking of US digital health company investment through 3rd Q smashed through 2018’s full-year high point ($8.2 bn) with a cannonball of a total. Adding $4.0 bn to first half’s $5.4 bn, it represents 311 deals and is 27 percent above last year’s oddly fading-in-the-stretch $7.4 bn [TTA 7 Feb]. Rock Health projects the year total to be about $12 million and 400 deals. 

• Average deal size topped $30.2 million, 150 percent greater than the $19.7 million average in 2019.
• Driving this total were “mega deals” of $100 million or more, accounting for 41 percent of all deals (compared with 30 percent for year 2019). Even with the inclusion of fitness companies that this Editor does not consider true health tech, such as Zwift (interactive fitness entertainment), ClassPass (online fitness), and Tonal (more online fitness), the 20+ remaining companies indicate a concentration of Big Capital into Big Deals. The Big Deals concentrate in three sectors: on-demand virtual care delivery, R&D process enablement, and fitness/wellness.
• Not surprisingly, telehealth and telemedicine are soaring: $1.6 bn in funding compared to $662 million same period 2019
• Also pointing to concentration: 64 percent of this year’s investors have previously made investments in digital health, which exceeds any prior year. Institutional venture firms have the largest share of transactions (62 percent), with corporate venture capital accounting for 15 percent of transactions.
• Given COVID and election year craziness, IPO action has moved right along and matched 2019’s six. Accolade and GoHealth in July; Amwell, Outset Medical, and GoodRx in September. Hims Inc. is merging with a blank-check company as SOC Telemed did in August. MDLive may be going public in early 2021.
• What is down so far this year is merger and acquisition activity. Through September, there are only 63 acquisitions, which will likely trail by year’s end 2019’s 113. Teladoc is the 9,000 Elephant in M&A, with InTouch Health closing in August ($1 bn final due to the stock value soaring) and Livongo at $18.5 bn dwarfs the remainder. Optum-AbleTo has been reported in ‘advanced talks’ but there’s no confirmation of closing; it was reported to be at $470 million. 

Note: Rock Health only counts US deals in excess of $2 million, so international activity by companies like Doro are not included.

Also Mobihealthews.