TTA’s August-Sept Wrap: how health tech fared in H1 investment, Oracle’s VA EHRM contract $ bump, Verma’s rumors, Cityblock buys Homeward, sensors could save Scots millions, more!

August 28, 2026 | by

28 August-early September 2026

It’s the last of the August Doldrums, so it’s a good time to look back, courtesy of SVB, on What Happened in Healthcare Investing this first half. (For once, health tech didn’t take a beating with its best H1 in years.) Oracle just can’t help being in the headlines, this time with a nice (and expected) budget bump in its extended VA EHRM contract, and with its Oracle Health EVP, the well-known Seema Verma, possibly under consideration by PhRMA. The only notable transaction was another acquisition in the General Catalyst family, Cityblock Health and Homeward Health. DEA may get a controlled substances telehealth rule yet. And the Scots have discovered and tested sensor-based facility monitoring that could save millions. Aye! (Will Harry and Meghan’s Cotswolds lair have it? Save on security!)

Please feel free to comment on the articles and pass along this Alert. Let me know if this is worth it to you! Also check out my personal page on Substack.

For Readers: Your Editor will be on publishing leave to mid-September. ‘Best Of’ Alerts will be out 1x weekly on Fridays after this week till then. I’ll be resting up for what may prove to be an epic September-October!

Silicon Valley Bank’s take on H1 investment: among the “have and have nots”, it was “the best half in years” for health tech

News roundup: Verma’s rumors, DEA’s new (?) telemedicine rule goes to OMB for review, Cityblock Health goes rural with Homeward buy, Scottish housing sensor tech could save millions–study

Revealed: Oracle’s extended VA EHRM contract increased by $17B as original ceiling reached this year; VA Indy EHR goes online

Last week’s headlines 

This Week’s Must Reads: how lack of focus dooms startup financing, Commure’s Sea of Red Flags Flapping, and what happens if OpenAI expires? (Doom…DOOM!)

News roundup: UHS-Talkspace $850M buy final, DocGo to buy Hicuity Health for $52M in stock/debt, R1 to buy Humata Health, PointClickCare EHR to integrate Anthropic’s AI

UK’s Alertacall sold to Constellation Software’s Volaris Group (Happily, remaining independent)

Recent Headlines and Must Reads

Why Readers can be assured that TTA is 100% Written by Humans (A handy guide to detecting AI Copy Slop and why it’s not here)

News potpourri: OpenAI sued for practicing unlicensed medicine”, Cleveland Clinic med drone delivery, Solventum separates out health info systems, Unlimited Technology RCM in 3.8M data breach, Samsung Galaxy Buds FDA cleared for hearing assist

VA moves to secure Oracle for its EHR Modernization through mid-2031 (More reasons beyond Captain Obvious)

Breaking report: Oracle drawing up plans to lay off employees in “double digit percentages” by 1 September (We’re waiting for this shoe to drop next month)

Chutes & Ladders, Oracle Edition: Surprise! Project Jupiter data center build overages, “social costs” multiply. Pentagon inks $7B, 10 year deal for software.

This week’s Must Read: the dangerous financing of AI data center buildouts–and how they resemble the 2020 health tech boom (Remember the SPAC boom that cracked and left nearly all companies and billions in the dust?)

A gloomy view on Oracle going forward: debt, cash flow, and dependence on OpenAI

 

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Telehealth & Telecare Aware – covering news on latest developments in telecare, telehealth and eHealth, worldwide.

Silicon Valley Bank’s take on H1 investment: among the “have and have nots”, it was “the best half in years” for health tech

August 27, 2026 | by

Silicon Valley Bank (SVB), now part of First Citizens Bank, is back with a just-published roundup of 2026’s first half (H1) in healthcare investment in the US and EU. Last year was a year of contractions and skewed investments, what they called “barbells, bookends, and have-nots”, with fewer investors hotly chasing profitability and monetization. This year is considerably sunnier for health tech in terms of total investment, but SVB still calls the overall picture across four sectors: Biopharma, Healthtech, Dx (diagnostics)/Tools, and Device….

“Haves and have-nots. Winners and losers. The top of the heap and everyone else. Pick your metaphor….”

For health tech, it was the best H1 since H1 2022, with $7.2 billion versus $9.1 billion in investment, a tidy increase versus 2025 H1’s $6.7 billion. The major difference is that the number of deals is collapsing, with 203 deals this H1. If you look at 2025’s year total of 598 deals, if this deal track maintains, the 2026 full year number may not break 500. Again, the deal value is disproportionately and increasingly skewed to Series C+ deals, far more so than the past two years. Series B deals contracted and there was another uptick in Series A fundings. (Page 12)

SVB attributes the new health tech prosperity to AI-based technologies: clinical workflow automation, administrative efficiency and data infrastructure. Payviders (remember them?) also had their overdue day powered by AI: Devoted Health in the US with Medicare Advantage, and Alan in Paris (EU and Canada only). In SVB’s terms, “The bar for founders has risen toward durable growth, differentiated technology and a credible path to scale, especially those leveraging AI to address meaningful healthcare challenges.”

Exits, though, are hard to suss. There weren’t many this half for health tech. Kaia Health (Sword) in January, and in provider operations Ostro (Veeva) and Diligent (Serve). Kaia was the only one with a positive multiple on its valuation. Zelis and Virta Health might IPO this year or 2027. Or never. (Page 17). 

Looking at all four sectors, while investment dollars are growing, the number of deals continues to trend downward:

  • H1 2026 healthcare investment at $24.7 billion is slightly below H2 2025 at $25.8 billion. The absolute high water mark was $43 billion set at H1 2021, in the midst of the ‘Throw Money At Anything’ period. But the trend is still one of recovery. 
  • The big difference is that the number of deals continues its downward trend, sharply. H1 2026 had only 618 deals versus 2025’s H1 801 and H2 703. H2 is not projected to pick up this slack, again.
  • 75% of investment is in the US, with EU accounting for 25%; EU is slowly but surely increasing its share.
  • The falling investment sector is Dx (diagnostics)/Tools. Device remains steady and constant. (Health tech Readers should look over at device, since here resides WHOOP and its $575 million Series G for Giant) skewing this sector.

Most concerning is that healthcare VC fundraising has hit new lows, and the money is concentrated in a few across the seed, early, and late stages. Only a few years ago, founders had a wide choice of VC funders with fat wallets. Not nowadays. H1 2026 funding for VCs was only $10 billion. Full year 2025 was $16 billion and 2024 $26 billion. Many large “name” funds ($100 billion plus) closed this year, such as Lux, Santé, Frist Cressey Ventures, and Kleiner Perkins. What’s left in health tech? General Catalyst, Andreesen Horowitz, Redesign, Menlo Ventures. It’s a monotonous roster. Occasionally, there’s a crossover. Especially at early stages, founders have lost leverage in finding a simpatico fund. They have to show that they have a credible path to growth and profitability. (Pages 7-8)

Unlike SVB’s last report for 2025, they did not break out a fifth sector cutting across all four, Longevity and Healthspan. 

SVB will also be changing their name during Q4 2026 to First Citizens Innovation Banking. Preview page for SVB’s Healthcare Industry Trends published 25 August.  Hat tip to Megan Scheffel, head of SVB’s healthcare sector.

TTA’s August Ice Cream Run: General Catalyst’s $ for Function Health, GI health is “IT” for Hinge and Throne, EO for AI, DispatchHealth repositions, Health NZ modernizes, Centene’s profit, more!

August 7, 2026 | by

7-10 August 2026

August weather may be ‘dog days’ but in digital health it was an ice cream run, with more to come next week. There was an unusually large General Catalyst debt financing of Function Health’s DTC lab testing subscription model and a lot of ‘movement’ around gastrointestinal health. A Presidential Executive Order on AI governance/cybersec, ATA on the virtual health case, Centene’s cutbacks to profitability, DispatchHealth’s refresh, and health modernizes in the Land of the Kiwi.

Please feel free to comment on the articles and pass along this Alert. Let me know if this is worth it to you! Also check out my personal page on Substack.

News roundup #2: Function Health’s jumbo $450M raise from General Catalyst, Hinge Health’s $105M Cylinder buy, and Throne Science’s $10M Series A

News roundup #1: AI governance ‘in’ with Feds, ATA; Centene’s shrinking but more profitable future; repositions and partnerships for DispatchHealth, WHOOP; Te Whatu Ora Health New Zealand modernization

Last week’s headlines

The week that was in M&A, financings: Included Health buys Firefly, Candid’s $120M raise, DarioHealth’s $23M RDO, TytoCare’s $25M growth round + new execs, Aurenar’s $5.7M seed for ICU neuromodulation

Chutes & Ladders, Oracle Edition: Surprise! Project Jupiter data center build overages, “social costs” multiply. Pentagon inks $7B, 10 year deal for software.

Catching up to Masimo’s ‘unfinished’ business: Danaher completes $9.9B acquisition of Masimo. $634 million damages from Apple upheld, but Kiani lawsuits continue

Recent Headlines and Must Reads

This week’s Must Read: the dangerous financing of AI data center buildouts–and how they resemble the 2020 health tech boom (Remember the SPAC boom that cracked and left nearly all companies and billions in the dust?)

Chutes & Ladders: Data breach clouts Clover, OpenAI agent escapes sandbox to attack Hugging Face, Precision’s surface BCI achieves thought control, Tempus AI $1.5B Personalis buy, Karoo Health’s $16.2M Series A

News roundup: Withings Medical Group service launches, MPs urge cancellation of NHS/Palantir FDP contract, IKS closes TruBridge buy for $557M, ATA comments on prelim CMS PFS for telehealth, Philips’ AI-powered…toothbrush

A gloomy view on Oracle going forward: debt, cash flow, and dependence on OpenAI

Midjourney Medical audaciously promises a revolution in whole-body scanning, powered by Butterfly Network chips. Can the reality ever match the hype?

Vinegary Must Reads This Week: Silicon Valley’s ‘Cargo Culture’; the clinical query tool explosion between OpenEvidence and general AI

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Telehealth & Telecare Aware – covering news on latest developments in telecare, telehealth and eHealth, worldwide.

News roundup #1: AI governance ‘in’ with Feds, ATA; Centene’s shrinking but more profitable future; repositions and partnerships for DispatchHealth, WHOOP; Te Whatu Ora Health New Zealand modernization

August 6, 2026 | by

Besides data center worries, AI governance and cybersecurity are very near the top of AI concerns.

  • For the Feds, AI is being used to patch up cyber vulnerabilities at speed and scale. The Gold Eagle “Promoting Advanced Artificial Intelligence Innovation and Security” initiative established in Executive Order (EO) 14409 is designed to operate across agency lines, reduce bureaucracy, stimulate innovation, and utilize AI for security as well as develop internal, responsible AI practices. It also promotes cooperation between the private sector and government by being built out by open source software companies, The EO has three major parts: 
    1. Upgrading American Systems for Advanced AI–this sets a 30 day clock from 2 June for adoption across the Committee on National Security Systems, the Departments of War, Homeland Security, Treasury, OMB and others.
    2. Secure Frontier Model Deployment–setting benchmarking, frameworks, “covered frontier models” and partners within 60 days inclusive of confidentiality, cybersecurity, insider-risk, and intellectual-property protection.
    3. Protection Against Criminal Actors–tightening up existing US Code and criminal laws to penalize “anyone who utilizes AI to illegally access or damage a computer without authorization, or who utilizes AI while engaged in such illegal access to further any other crime”.

Healthcare IT News

The American Telemedicine Association (ATA) and its advocacy arm, ATA ACTION, are establishing three working groups to help shape AI governance policy affecting virtual care and telemedicine. The first is on state-level AI policy, the second and third groups are centered on Federal policy agendas, regulations, and how state and Federal governments approach AI in virtual care. The three groups will present their report outcomes in December at the ATA EDGE Policy Conference setting the direction for ATA ACTION’s advocacy priorities in 2027. ATA Release

As payers continue to shrink due to plan membership declines and closures/selloffs, Centene actually is notching some profit and having some sunnier days. Centene’s Q2 closed with a stunning $1.1 billion in profit, with H1 at $2.6 billion, reminiscent of the palmy Michael Neidorff days when the sky was the limit and what was on the ground with the operating plans/companies was a jungle. This was quite a contrast versus 2025’s Q2 $253 million loss and H1  $1.05 billion profit. Revenues were also up nicely with H1 this year at  $103.5 billion, compared to $95.4 billion last year. All exceeded Wall Street estimates and gave Centene the opportunity to boost its 2026 full year outlook to at least $4.80 in earnings per share and revenue to between $193.5 billion to $197.5 billion, a flat-to-boost from 2025’s ending $194.78 billion and $2.08 per share.

At this point, it’s apparent that despite shrinking memberships down to 25.9 million as of Q2, both their sizable Medicaid and ACA plan memberships shrinking sharply, Centene has wrestled that old devil, the Medical Loss Ratio (MLR) to 89.6%, down from 93%. Another bright spot has been their commercial plans which have notched growth and a 10 point less MLR. ACA memberships are down from 5.9 million to 3.5 million. The ACA premium tax credit subsidies expired at the end of 2025, effectively causing premiums to double for nearly everyone. Aetna exited this year and Cigna will be out in 2027.

Share price is also sunny side up. Since April, shares have gone from the $31/share bottom in April to the $60 plus range since June. Centene is reportedly working hard to improve their plan STAR (CMS) and HEDIS (NCQA) ratings.

What is not so sunny is the number of people being shed at Centene. They’ve reported a cut of about 1,200 people as of Q2. It’s unknown how many have accepted the voluntary separation plan (VSP) that was announced in June and deadlined on 27 July. TTA 18 June  Centene reported that they forecast H2 severance costs between roughly $315 million and $365 million. Many of these severances will hit between early September and December, although on the Centene page on The Layoff, some employees accepting the VSP have dates into late 2027.

The VSP is in addition to prior layoffs that took place in H1. Centene reported H1 severance and third-party vendor costs of $61 million, with $47 million hitting in Q2. (This Editor knows a former colleague who was laid off after 16 years in June.) There are also rumors of further layoffs in H2 not part of the VSP as memberships shrink. FierceHealthcare, Becker’s, Centene earnings release

This Editor will reiterate that rarely does shrinking to profitability work except as an interim strategy to stem losses or look better to shareholders. Even with AI tools, operating plans without people on a ‘bare bones’ basis gets plans into quality ratings trouble, the nature of the health plan ‘beast’. That’s even true of commercial plans where employers and third-party brokers shoulder part of the load.

(Disclosure: this Editor was briefly a Centene employee after the company she worked for, WellCare Health Plans, was bought by Centene. She is a holder of Centene stock converted from her prior company. The above is strictly her opinion and protected speech, and should not be used as investment advice.)

DispatchHealth brightly announced what they termed a ‘refined market focus’ and a new website. This terminology means that Dispatch, which was previously known for providing home medical care, recovery services, and hospital-level care at home, now is stating that they are focusing on their B2B health system customers, “offering solutions that empower health systems and risk-bearing providers to build and scale their at-home programs, under their own brands”. Translation: they are now white labeling their CESIA platform and services to health systems to turnkey complex care at home via their workforce. Dispatch merged with Medically Home in June [TTA 21 Mar]. Investment to date has been $733 million through seven rounds (Series E) through 2022, which means that they’ve been paying their own way for some time. Dispatch release

WHOOP continues to “it” up, inking a new partnership in increasingly popular women’s digital health. The Natural Cycles app, which tracks fertility via the menstrual cycle and overnight skin temperature, will integrate with WHOOP’s biometric data collected from their wearable. This past spring, WHOOP definitely whooped it up with a $575 million Series G (for Giant) funding in April and claims 2.5 million members internationally. Natural Cycles has also enjoyed strong funding, including $55 million in a Series C round in 2024,  Mobihealthnews

And flying off way down under to New Zealand, Te Whatu Ora/Health New Zealand has enlisted UCLPartners for tech  modernization. Te Whatu Ora is New Zealand’s largest employer and provides universal health care to 5 million Kiwis. The partnership is for deployment of technology and AI through their digital and AI innovation program, HealthX. In April, they announced that they were working on five initiatives: AI scribes, remote patient monitoring (RPM) for heart failure patients, AI-enabled skin lesion assessments, AI-enabled diagnostics, and CoPilot for leadership and digital services. Health Informatics NZ  UCLPartners is a health innovations developer in care pathways and innovations and workflows. London-based, it works extensively with the National Health Service (NHS). The company worked with Te Whatu Ora on the HealthX AI scribe rollout for horizon scanning work. Healthcare IT News

Chutes & Ladders: Xsolis data breach affects 1.4M records, Five Eyes warns of AI-supercharged hacking; FDA closes Whoop BP warning, Centene adds HR/finance exec to board; $120M raises for Assort Health, $46M for xCures

June 26, 2026 | by

This week’s Big Data Breach affects 1.4 million patients at multiple healthcare organizations. The vector was a business associate, Xsolis, that is a vendor of utilization and case management software for providers and health plans. The phishing attack on an Xsolis employee took place on 20 January and by 22 January exfiltrated names, addresses, date of birth, health insurance information, Social Security numbers, and medical treatment information. They shortly thereafter notified client patients of the breach (Kroll Xsolis website notice) and offered data protection services to those affected. But only this month was the extent of the breach revealed: 1,396,519 records. Reports were submitted on 5 June to Health and Human Services’ (HHS) Office of Civil Rights (OCR). On 19 June, the California Attorney General’s Office posted a copy of the breach notification letter that Xsolis sent to its clients’ patients. To date, there have been no ransom or extortion demands nor dark web threats. Affected organizations have been reported as  Rochester Regional Health with 18,600 patients affected, Mayo Clinic and VHC. DataBreaches.net, Yahoo News–TechRadar

The multi-national data security alliance Five Eyes warns of AI supercharging hacking attacks. The three-page statement details how AI accelerates cybersec attacks and the need for ‘defence in depth’ with threats increasing in months, not years. It offers a five-point plan to reduce vulnerabilities and to use AI to defend against attackers. However, with most healthcare organizations overwhelmed with implementing AI tools, suppliers like Xsolis a vector for attack, and employees going outside for AI tools, the threat level has been amped 100x. The MIT Sloan article also warns that Anthropic’s Mythos, which is reportedly capable of autonomously finding and exploiting software vulnerabilities end-to-end with no human involvement, could be used for cyberattacks and chemical/biological attacks. Five Eyes is drawn from the US, UK, Canada, New Zealand, and Australia cybersecurity agencies. DataBreaches.net

In more cheerful news, Whoop announced that the FDA closed an investigation into their wearable’s Blood Pressure Insights feature. This started with a letter from FDA’s Center for Devices and Radiological Health (CDRH) in July 2025 challenging Whoop on the basis that the company did not have an approved application for premarket approval (PMA) or 510(k) approval of that feature.  Apparently, Whoop backed off of original claims that the BPI offered medical-grade health and performance insights and moved to general wellness claims ‘not intended for medical use’. It didn’t dissuade funders from a gigantic $575 million Series G in April. [TTA 9 Apr] MassDevice 

Centene, which in last week’s Chutes announced a voluntary separation plan (VSP) to most employees with 2 years or more in the company, added a board member. Lauren Tyler will be joining immediately to serve on Centene’s audit committee and compensation and talent committee. Ms. Tyler is a 20 year-plus JP Morgan veteran who was global head of human resources for asset and wealth management, global firmwide chief auditor, and global head of investor relations. That is an interesting skill set given what is happening at Centene and the need to compensate by downsizing for the crash in Medicaid and ACA members, as noted in the Release, Healthcare Dive

Raises have perked up again after a few weeks off.

Assort Health just raised a $120 million Series C. It was led by Menlo Ventures, with participants including Lightspeed Venture Partners, Felicis, First Round Capital, Chemistry, Joe Montana (!), Tau Ventures, and Quiet Capital. Assort provides an AI-assisted patient  voice agent along with an impressive AI model, Synapse, for specialty workflows that automate scheduling, intake forms, referrals, document processing, medication refills, real-time eligibility, lab requests, and payments. San Francisco-based Assort to date has raised $222 million and is now valued at $1.2 billion. Release

xCures scored a $46 million Series B. It was led by Innovius Capital, with participation from iGrow, GKCC, Spring Mountain Capital, and existing investors. Total funding is now over $76 million. xCures’ business model is focused on gathering scattered clinical patient data, assembling and structuring patient medical records into usable decision-ready data through its Clinical Clarity Engine. It is delivered to users via a web UI or a developer-friendly API. To date, they have 300 million medical records sourced from more than 550,000 healthcare locations nationwide. The new funds will be used for expansion of the Clinical Clarity Engine’s capabilities. Release, Mobihealthnews

Chutes & Ladders: Ad trackers still on healthcare websites after lawsuits, FTC; the US Navy adds WHOOPs it up and expands Talkspace; HealthVerity to buy Symphony Health; Nervonik’s $52.5M Series B

May 7, 2026 | by

In the Chutes department…remember the scandal around healthcare ad trackers back in 2022? After multiple lawsuits, Congressional hearings, Department of Justice (DOJ), Federal Trade Commission (FTC), and Health & Human Services (HHS) investigations that were supposed to curb their use three to four years ago, ad trackers are still being used by healthcare organizations.

A Bloomberg-Feroot Security investigation published this week uncovered that nearly all of the 20 health insurance exchanges (HIX) set up by states and the District of Columbia as part of the ACA use ad trackers. Information included sex, citizenship, and race. In New York State, the HIX shared the pages applicants visited during enrollment with TikTok, Meta, Snap Inc. and LinkedIn. Even details about incarcerated family members was shared. Over 7 million Americans buy health insurance through the state sites.

The problem is that Federal protections on personal information (personal health information–PHI, and personally identifiable information–PII) do not apply at the state level. State laws are inconsistent and incomplete. There are consumer protection laws, but again application is inconsistent. And rather neatly, the ad companies contractually place the compliance responsibility on advertisers. While ad trackers serve useful marketing and operational purposes for site analytics, data retention, and ad targeting, sending PHI and PII to third parties for that purpose violates privacy. 

The other 30 states use the Federal Healthcare.gov insurance exchange site. California removed trackers in 2025.

In 2022, ad trackers were on health system websites, large provider groups such as VillageMD, and e-prescribers such as the controversial Cerebral. Trackers such as Meta Pixel were disclosing all sorts of protected information that violated HIPAA and privacy guidelines to third parties such as Facebook, Instagram, and Google–and monetized. Most health systems removed them and Cerebral was fined for this as well as other issues. TTA 16 April 2024, 17 June 2022, 21 June 2022

The US Navy is sailing with WHOOP and Talkspace. WHOOP, through MIT Lincoln Laboratory, has been awarded a contract to support the US Navy’s Command Readiness, Endurance, and Watchstanding (CREW) program. The CREW program’s objective is to improve operational readiness by reducing fatigue-related risk. WHOOP’s fitness and health monitoring wearable will be used to integrate physiological data into the CREW system architecture by monitoring sleep, recovery, and strain.

To gain the Navy contract, WHOOP waged a successful Federal procurement battle with fitness ring Oura, which was awarded a $96 million contract in 2024. WHOOP argued that the specifications were too narrowly written in specifying a ring wearable and that the contract was awarded to a foreign company (Oura is based in Finland, WHOOP in Boston).  Certainly they had the funds to wage war with the Department of War; WHOOP scored a whopping $575 million Series G last month for a $10.1 billion valuation. The value of WHOOP’s contract via MIT is undisclosed. Oura has other contracts for projects with the Department of War. Release, Mobihealthnews

Talkspace is expanding its existing virtual behavioral health therapy program with the Navy to 40,000 sailors and families based at 13 Navy installations. They will have access to the Talkspace Go self-paced app and other offerings through their TRICARE benefits. Talkspace offers virtual therapy for anxiety, social anxiety, depression, ADHD, bipolar disorder, OCD, insomnia, postpartum depression, panic disorder, gambling addiction, schizophrenia, eating disorders and more, including medication refills. The company was bought for $838 million in March by Universal Health Services (UHS), a diversified for-profit health services provider, with the closing expected by Q3  [TTA 12 March]. There is no disclosure of the value of the contract nor the length. Mobihealthnews, Release

In M&A, ICON plc’s subsidiary Symphony Health is being acquired by HealthVerity. Purchase price is not disclosed. Symphony is a major company in the data analytics and clinical intelligence field with a massive commercial data repository, built on analyzing millions of patient claims and transactions for outcomes. ICON claims it stores 14 petabytes of data, sourced from over 900,000 providers and over 305 million patients. Clinical research organization (CRO) ICON acquired Symphony, founded in 2012 from four earlier health data companies, when it purchased PRA Health Sciences, also a CRO, in 2021. It was operated by ICON as a US subsidiary. The stated goal is to unite Symphony’s commercial health data with HealthVerity’s data exchange and patient identity systems. The deal is expected to close later this month. Release, Mobihealthnews

Medical device company Nervonik announced an oversubscribed $52.5 million Series B funding round. Their peripheral nerve stimulation (PNS) neuromodulation technology is used in high-motion areas of the body for chronic pain treatment. The financing was led by Amzak Health, with participation from Elevage Medical Technologies, U.S. Venture Partners (USVP), Lumira Ventures, Foothill Ventures, and Shangbay Capital, bringing their total funding to over $65 million. Their PNS integrates stimulation with advanced sensing to deliver more precise and personalized therapy. Nervonik completed a first human clinical trial of nerve stimulation for chronic pain in March 2025. Release, Mobihealthnews

Funding/deal roundup: WHOOP’s $575M Giant raise, Anthropic buys med AI startup for $400M, early stage fundings for Jimini, Insight Health; Noom buys compounder; Mount Sinai NY to embed OpenEvidence

April 9, 2026 | by

Deals lately are very large…or very small. All have “AI” somewhere. Some unusual ones this past week.

The WHOOP wearable definitely whooped it up with a $575 million Series G (for Giant) funding. It’s a fitness and health watch that is reasonably trim and presentable sans a screen. It tracks sleep, activity, heart health and menstrual cycles (if applicable) through measurement of heart rate variability (HRV), resting heart rate (RHR), respiratory rate, and blood oxygen levels, and appeals to the very athletic with metrics around recovery and strain. The Boston-based company claims 2.5 million members internationally; in 2025 it marked 2025 growth of 103% and exited at the infamous ‘run rate’ metric of $1.1 billion. Their AI twist is around biometric data and how it is used to guide tracking and performance. It is heavily pitched to elite sports with famous athlete endorsers/investors such as soccer star Cristiano Rinaldo, basketball’s LeBron James, and golfer Rory McElroy.

The round was led by Collaborative Fund and includes global participation from a gang of investors including 2PointZero Group, Qatar Investment Authority (QIA), Mubadala Investment Company, Abbott, Mayo Clinic, Macquarie Capital (entities administered by Macquarie Capital), Glade Brook, B-Flexion, IVP, Foundry, Accomplice, Affinity Partners, Promus Ventures, and Bullhound Capital alongside a group of prominent global athletes and individual investors. The additional funds will be used for growth in the US plus international expansion across Europe, the GCC, Latin America, and Asia. The wonderfully subjective (by investors) metric of valuation stands at $10.1 billion. Total funding since 2012 is over $900 million.

WHOOP received the infamous Warning Letter from FDA’s Center for Devices and Radiological Health (CDRH) in July 2025 regarding marketing claims for Blood Pressure Insights (BPI) on the basis that the company did not have an approved application for premarket approval (PMA) or 510(k) approval of that feature. The founder/CEO is contesting FDA as he believes that the feature is for general wellness purposes and is covered under the 21st Century Cures Act.  Mobihealthnews, WHOOP release

(In all honesty, this Editor had only vaguely heard of it, but her idea of a expensive watch usually has the name Elgin or Hamilton on the face and is usually antique (Omega too, sigh). In fitness watches, she thinks of Apple, Samsung, and the low-profile Withings (which makes traditionally styled smartwatches) but none of them have persuaded her to part with several hundred dollars.)

Anthropic buys a tiny bio research software developer for a stunning $400 million in stock. Coefficient Bio was founded only eight months ago and reportedly had only nine employees. It was so stealthy that it never got past the placeholder website. The amount was reported by its 50% owner, venture capital firm Dimension, which realized a hefty 38,513% IRR on the investment. Coefficient was working on AI models and software for biological research.  Apparently founder Samuel Stanton and his team will join Anthropic’s Health Care Life Sciences area. It’s interesting that Anthropic is building up their healthcare footprint after making their customized AI available to both consumers and clinicians, quite a contrast to OpenAI’s purchase of TPTN, a small podcaster of tech news and personalities (CNBC). HISTalk 4/6/26, Silicon Angle, Newcomer

Early stage companies also nabbed some decent fundings

Behavioral health therapy assistant Jimini Health raised $17 million in seed funding from M13, Town Hall Ventures, LionBird, Zetta Venture Partners, and OneMind, bringing total funding to more than $25 million. Their AI-forward (of course) Sage platform fills the niche left by fully remote telementalhealth companies in supporting large behavioral health provider organizations. NYC-based Jimini  promotes a clinician-supervised and controlled patient-facing, reimbursement-ready and compliant infrastructure with licensed clinicians maintaining oversight of every patient interaction. According to the release, the funding will be used to build partnerships with “several of the largest behavioral health provider organizations in the country and expand Sage’s clinical capabilities across comorbidities, care settings, and patient engagement modalities”. Release, Behavioral Health Business, Mobihealthnews

Insight Health’s $11 million Series A will be used to scale its agentic AI platform. The round was led by Standard Capital, with participation from Kindred Ventures, Pear VC, Eudemian, 43 and ElevenLabs. Insight Health uses AI to automate routine clinical and non-clinical tasks such as phone and front-desk coordination, referral and fax processing, pre-clinical intake, and clinical documentation. For instance their agents engage with patients directly via voice or text. Current customer base is in clinics. Their Aura AI Scribe and Virtual Care Assistant are available in athenahealth’s Marketplace. Their total funding is about $16 million. Release, Mobihealthnews

Short takes:

Noom buys 503A licensed pharmacy Tailor Made Compounding (TMC). The buy, according to Noom, will enable them to expand beyond weight loss GLP-1s further into the healthy aging segment, with longevity peptides, hormone replacement, and cosmetics. Noom has weathered several pivots, starting in 2008 with fitness apps, then added behavioral change with a weight-loss coaching app in 2017. It has pretty much settled into the lucrative e-prescribing and wellness ‘preventative care’ area targeting health plans and employers. TMC’s client base includes 400 clinics and multiple telehealth partners, which presumably Noom will let them maintain. Acquisition cost and staff transitions were not disclosed beyond integration ‘later this summer’.  Release, Mobihealthnews

‘IT’ clinical information search engine/AI chatbot OpenEvidence inks deal with NY’s Mount Sinai Health System. It is Mount Sinai’s first enterprise-wide AI deployment and integration across clinical roles, according to the health system’s announcement last week. It will be integrated into their Epic EHR. OpenEvidence, with a eyeblinking valuation of $12 billion [TTA 13 Feb], claims a daily average usage by 40% of US doctors in 10,000 hospitals and medical centers of their free search engine trained on journals and clinical medical data only. It fills a gap that competitors Doximity, Epocrates, and Medscape aren’t doing. It has added clinical trial matching to its capabilities filtering trials by study design, enrollment status, and geographic proximity. This adds on to Sutter Health’s integration into doctors’ Epic workflows announced earlier this year. Healthcare IT News

Week-end roundup of not-good news: Teladoc’s Q2 $3B net loss, shares down 24%; Humana, Centene, Molina reorg and downscale; layoffs at Included Health, Capsule, Noom, Kry/Livi, Babylon Health, more (updated)

July 30, 2022 | by

Teladoc continues to be buffeted by wake turbulence from the Livongo acquisition. The company took a $3 billion goodwill impairment charge in Q2, adding to the $6.3 billion impairment charge in Q1. The total impairment of $9.3 billion was the bulk of the first half loss of nearly $10 billion. While their revenue of $592.4 million exceeded analyst projections of $588 million, adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) of $46.7 million were barely up from projections and were down from $66.8 million year prior. Losses per share mounted to $19.22, versus $0.86 in Q2 2021.

Another weak spot is their online therapy service, BetterHelp, which in the US is pursuing a substantial TV campaign. CEO Jason Gorevic in the earnings release pointed out competitors buying the business at low margins and consumer spending pullbacks. Teladoc’s forward projections are bolstered by Primary360 and Chronic Care Complete. Projected revenue for Q3 is $600 million to $620 million. Shares on Thursday took a 24% hit, adding to the over 50% YTD drop misery. At best, Teladoc will muddle through the remainder of the year, if they are lucky. MarketWatch, Mobihealthnews, FierceHealthcare

Health plans are also presenting a mixed picture. 

  • Humana announced a healthy earnings picture for the quarter and YTD. It earned $696 million in profit for Q2, up nearly 20% year over year. For first half, Humana earned $1.6 billion, an increase of 14.8% from 2021’s $1.4 billion. Cited were growth in their primary care clinics, Medicaid membership, and investment in Medicare Advantage. Earnings surpassed Wall Street projections and Humana increased its guidance to $24.75 in earnings per share. At the same time, they announced a reorganization of its operating units that separates their insurance services (retail health plans and related) and CenterWell for healthcare services including home health. Some key executives will be departing, including the current head of retail health plans who will stay until early 2023, ending a 30 year Humana career. FierceHealthcare, Healthcare Dive
  • Under new leadership, Centene posted a Q2 loss of $172 million which in reality was a significant improvement over Q2 2021’s $535 million and looked on favorably by analysts.
    • Their ‘value creation plan’ has sold off its two specialty pharmacy operations to multiple investors, using third-party vendors in future, and agreed this week to sell its international holdings in Spain and Central Europe — Ribera Salud, Torrejón Salud, and Pro Diagnostics Group — to Vivalto Santé, France’s third-largest private hospital company.
    • Medicaid, their largest business line, has been growing by 7%.
    • Centene is continuing to divest much of its considerable owned and leased real estate holdings, which marks a radical change from the former and now late CEO’s* ‘edifice complex’ to house his ‘cubie culture’. As a result, it is taking a $1.45 billion impairment charge.  Healthcare Dive. [* Michael Neidorff passed away on 7 April, after 25 years as CEO, a record which undoubtedly will never be matched at a health plan.)
    • A cloud in this picture: Centene’s important Medicare Advantage CMS Star quality ratings for 2023 will be “disappointing” which was attributed to the WellCare acquisition (accounting for most of the MA plans), two different operating models between the companies, and the sudden transition to a remote workforce. For plans, WellCare operated on a centralized model, Centene on a decentralized one, and the new management now seems to prefer the former. (Disclosure: your Editor worked over two years for WellCare in marketing, but not in MA.) Healthcare Dive
  • One of the few ‘pure’ health plans without a services division, Molina Healthcare, is also going the real estate divestment route and going full virtual for its workforce. Their real estate holdings will be scaled down by about two-thirds for both owned and leased buildings. Molina does business in 19 states and owns or leases space across the US. Net income for the second quarter increased 34% to $248 million on higher revenue of $8 billion. Healthcare Dive

Many of last year’s fast-growing health tech companies are scaling back in the past two months as fast as they grew in last year’s hothouse–and sharing the trajectory of other tech companies as well as telehealth as VCs, PEs, and shareholders are saying ‘where’s the money?’. 

  • Included Health, the virtual health company created from the merger of Grand Rounds and Doctor on Demand plus the later acquisition of care concierge Included Health, rebranding under that name, has cut staff by 6%. The two main companies continued to operate separately as their markets and accounts were very different: Grand Rounds for second opinion services for employees, and Doctor on Demand for about 3 million telehealth consults in first half 2020. As Readers know, the entire telehealth area is now settling down to a steady but not inflated level–and competition is incredibly fierce. FierceHealthcare
  • Unicorns backed by big sports figures aren’t immune either. Whoop, a Boston-based wearable fitness tech startup with a valuation of $3.6 billion, is laying off 15% of its staff. (Link above)
  • Digital pharmacy/telemedicine Capsule is releasing 13% of its over 900 member staff, putting a distinct damper on the already depressed NYC Silicon Alley.  FierceHealthcare also notes layoffs at weight loss program Calibrate (24%), the $7 billion valued Ro for telehealth for everything from hair loss to fertility (18%), Cedar in healthcare payments (24%), and constantly advertising Noom weight loss (495 people). Updated: Calibrate’s 150-person layoff was reported as particularly brutally handled with employees. Many were newly hired the previous week, given 30 minutes notice of a two-minute webinar notice, then their laptops were wiped. Given that the company makes much of its empathy in weight loss, facilitating prescription of GLP-1 along with virtual coaching, for a hefty price of course. HISTalk 8/3/22
  • Buried in their list are layoffs at Stockholm-based Kry, better known as Livi in the UK, US, and France, with 100 employees (10%).
  • Layoffs.fyi, a tracker, also lists Babylon Health as this month planning redundancies of 100 people of its current 2,500 in their bid to save $100 million in Q3. Bloomberg