The wrapup line on ViVE

February 22, 2025 | by

Digital health conference ViVE 2025 in Nashville wrapped on Wednesday–and surprisingly, there weren’t any bombshells. The well-attended Sunday-Wednesday conference in the Music City was abbreviated due to…snow. Even though the snow came in at a less-than-forecast 1.5 inches, many participants, concerned about flights, headed for home.

Observations from an (anonymous) attendee on HIStalk (News 2/19/25 and 2/21/25) were generally positive. He or she reported a filled conference, show floor, and meeting spaces at the Nashville Convention Center and much more. Highlights:

  • 10,000 attendees–2,500 more than ViVE 2023 in Nashville, and 2,000 more than 2024 in Los Angeles. 30% were C–level from 725 provider and payer organizations represented. Tuesday was the busiest day but only 2,000 remained on Wednesday due to the snow report.
  • The real action took place in 1:1 and group meetings, most pre-scheduled–over 5,000 were booked in ViVE’s meeting spaces and “cubes”. The Provider and Payer Connect Lounge was much larger with at least 170 small tables for meetings with vendors. Unsurprisingly, the Investor Connect Lounge was smaller. The impression this person had was that there were fewer investors attending this year.
  • The show floor had a lot of activity and was nearly filled. Effectively every vendor pitched their AI capabilities. By the last day, usually the lightest anyway but with the snow, one-third were unattended or packed up. 
  • Sparsely attended and in smaller spaces: the four primary presentation stages.

ViVE has become a place to meet, talk, initiate/advance the buyer journey, and move towards a ‘deal deal’. It’s also for scoping out the competition. Presentations and panels have become beside the point.

A third article in HIStalk’s Readers Write were additional reflections from Mike Silverstein, a managing partner at DRI (Direct Recruiter Inc.), recruiting in the health IT and life sciences area. AI tools “are really getting smart, borderline scary smart”–especially AI agents being trained on “serious healthcare data and workflows”. Vendors are layering their workflows on top of off-the-shelf AI agents and the speed to market is “blinding”. Investment is up too with less ‘hand to mouth.’

Announcements, heavy on the AI, made during ViVE and recapped in MedCity News: 

  • Data analytics firm MultiPlan rebranded as Claritev. The company provides payments and pricing solutions based on healthcare claims data. It will start trading on the NYSE under CTEV next Friday 28 February. Release
  • Abridge announced their $250 million Series D [TTA 21 Feb]
  • Automation platform developer Innovaccer announced seven new AI agents. These ‘agents of care’ automate administrative  tasks in scheduling, protocol intake, referrals, prior authorizations, care gap, HCC, and patient access. The agents are designed to support multiple care teams, including clinicians, care managers, risk coders, patient navigators, and call center agents. Release
  • Lumeris launched an AI tool, Tom, that automates tasks like care coordination, chronic disease management and patient outreach in clinical workflows for primary care providers. Release
  • UPMC Enterprises soft-launched a virtual environment, Ahavi, for developers to test and evaluate the efficacy of AI models against UPMC’s patient population data. UPMC Enterprises is the innovation and commercialization arm of the UPMC health system. More on this from HealthPoint and FierceHealthcare.
  • IKS Health launched a generative AI scribe, Scribble Now. It automates notes during the patient visit via automated speech recognition (ASR) and generative AI (GenAI). Release
  • Healthcare operations software developer Symplyr launched the Symplr Operations Platform (SOP). It unifies separate solutions onto a AWS cloud-based infrastructure to unify disparate solutions. Release

Funding/M&A roundup: DarioHealth’s $25M, Innovaccer buys Humbi AI, Percipio Health launches with a $20M Series A, Iris Telehealth buys innovaTel

January 23, 2025 | by

DarioHealth pulls another multi-colored rabbit out of the hat. This time, it’s a $25.6 million private placement of 25,605 shares of convertible preferred stock at $1,000 per share “to extend Dario’s cash runway and bolster its financial position enabling the Company to continue executing its current strategic plan”.  The raise is from existing investors with the rest from ‘accredited healthcare investors’ and healthcare sector executives who can presumably hack their way through the terms and conditions of the placement.

Their objective by the end of 2025 is to have an operational positive cash flow run rate from “high-margin, scalable recurring revenues across our B2B and pharma channels.”  With the private placement, Dario has a $40.6 million cash position. Their last raise of $22.4 million, also a private placement, was timed with their complex $30 million (maybe) Twill telementalhealth acquisition in February 2024.  DarioHealth release, Mobihealthnews

That strategic plan has changed substantially since 2022, when Dario branched out from MSK therapies to clinically-based interventional care management solutions through apps and consults in cardiometabolic and behavioral health. In 2023, their revenue dropped to $20.4 million to the prior year’s $27.7 million with a slightly reduced net loss of $59.4 million from $62.2 million. This was attributed to changing from a B2B to a B2B2C model. By Q3 2024 the strategy at least on the revenue side seemed to be working, with YTD revenues at $19.4 million, a 16.1% increase over prior year, but an increased loss of  $46.1 million. Release.

Earlier this month, Dario jumped on the GLP-1 prescribing bandwagon with prescribing capabilities announced through a collaboration with MedOrbis. Release

Innovaccer makes third acquisition in a year, Humbi AI. The AI-enabled data analytics company for payer and provider intelligence will combine Humbi AI’s actuarial software, services, and analytics with their Healthcare Intelligence Cloud. Humbi’s data includes Medicare and Medicaid data covering over 200 million lives. Purchase price, funding, and management transitions for the small Tennessee-based company were not disclosed. San Francisco-based Innovaccer, which earlier this month raised $275 million in a rare Series F, purchased Cured and Pharmacy Quality Solutions (PQS) in 2024. Release, FierceHealthcare

Percipio Health launches with a $20 million Series A and a veteran crew. The Plano, Texas-based startup RPM company has developed an app-only platform that monitors health conditions without the use of peripheral devices. It works by collecting multiple health signals daily through vision-based AI biomarkers for vitals and medication monitoring and vocal AI biomarkers for brain health assessments, among others. This provides predictive clinical intelligence for clinicians to assess and provide proactive care for rising and high-risk patient populations. Co-founders Eric Rock and David Lucas co-founded Vivify Health, a RPM platform now owned by Optum and earlier  MEDHOST, an emergency department medical records and workflow solution now part of HealthTech Holdings. Percipio’s raise came from investors including UPMC Enterprises, WAVE Ventures, Labcorp, and First Trust Capital Partners, LLC.  Release

Iris Telehealth acquires innovaTel by Quartet. Iris specializes in providing behavioral health services to health systems and community health clinics. innovaTel adds telepsychiatry staffing through its national network of qualified psychiatrists, psychiatric nurse practitioners, and licensed clinical social workers. According to the release, Iris also becomes one of the largest telepsychiatry providers in the US. Psychiatric service coverage has been moving towards a crisis point for years, with the Federal Health Resources & Services Administration (HRSA) calculating that nearly 160 million Americans live in areas designated as having a mental health provider shortage.  Psychiatry is also the third oldest specialty, with doctors’ average age at 55 (Psychiatric Times).  Purchase price, funding, and management transitions were not disclosed. Release