Consumer-focused health technology companies raised $398 million from 103 investment deals in the first quarter of 2014, according to a report from Mercom Capital Group.
When Mercom Capital Group broke this category down further, it found the majority of the funding came from mobile health companies, which raised $198 million in 61 deals. The second highest total was from telehealth companies, $79 million in 14 deals. The third consumer-focused health category, scheduling, rating, and shopping companies, received $66 million in six deals.
Mercom found that the wider category -- health IT deals -- totaled $858 million in 163 deals during Q1. Of that group, 65 were early-stage deals under $2 million, 29 of which were accelerator or incubator deals.
Investments less than $2 million were more likely to be consumer-focused and deals that were more than $2 million were for technologies targeted at providers more often than not. Provider-focused technology companies received more than half of all investment dollars tracked in Q1 -- $460 million in 60 deals.
The most funded categories within provider-focused technology were practice management, which had $124 million in eight deals; health information exchange, which had $78 million in two deals; and data analytics, which had $43 million in seven deals.
Last week, Rock Health published its digital health funding report that included investments in companies that raised more than $2 million. According to Rock Health, funding reached nearly $700 million in the first quarter of 2014. The total funding grew 87 percent when compared to the first quarter of 2013. Rock Health tracked 68 investments in its first quarter report.
Like Mercom, Rock Health pointed to MedHOK, a healthcare platform that raised $77.5 million and MindBody, a scheduling portal for health and wellness services that raised $50 million as big dollar deals that happened during the quarter.
MobiHealthNews' own Q1 2014 report tracked digital health and mobile health company investments too -- we tracked $257.6 million for 33 deals.
