The entire MobiHealthNews team is at this week's Health 2.0 event in San Francisco where more than 1,600 people are in attendance, according to the show's organizers. While that's an impressive number, Health 2.0 co-founders Matthew Holt and Indu Subaiya announced that they were now tracking more than 2,100 companies in their Health 2.0 Index -- up from 1,700 companies that Health 2.0 tracked last year.
Holt and Subaiya also tweaked the definition of Health 2.0 during their opening remarks on Monday. A Health 2.0 company needs to be adaptable and able to "play well with others" as opposed to developing standalone offerings. Health 2.0 companies must have a "pleasing user experience" and also use data to inform better and more intelligent decisions.
According to the events company, Health 2.0 companies raised about $1 billion in funds in 2011. As of the end of the third quarter of 2012 Health 2.0 companies have already raised more than $1 billion. Most of the investment dollars have been chasing consumer-facing startups and those working on patient-provider communications offerings, according to Health 2.0. So far in 2012 there have been about 130 investment deals for Health 2.0 companies.
According to the most recent funding report assembled by health accelerator Rock Health, Health 2.0's figure for total funding in 2012 is about right: There has been nearly $1.1 billion in investment dollars injected into digital health startups this year, up from $626 million as of this time last year. Rock Health notes that this marks a 70 percent increase in money and a 84 percent increase in deals over last year. According to Rock Health, so far about 103 digital health companies have raised $2 million in funds or more in 2012. What's more, some 128 venture capital firms have invested in digital health companies this year. About 10 percent of the investors are new to digital health, Rock Health found.
While Health 2.0 has found a significant portion of investment dollars have followed consumer-facing offerings, Rock Health found that the majority of investment dollars have chased companies with B2B business models. About $448 million of 2012 investment dollars went to B2C companies, according to Rock Health.
Interestingly, according to Rock Health's report, most of the leaders of digital health companies that received funding so far in 2012 have been men with some kind of previous healthcare work experience.
Expect much, much more reporting from Health 2.0 in the days ahead -- and if you are attending Health 2.0 or are located in the Bay Area let us know while we are in town.