Mobile, telehealth dominate Q3 funding

From the mHealthNews archive
By Erin McCann
09:45 am

When it comes to venture capital, consumer-focused technologies - including mobile and telehealth -  walked away with the lion's share: 65 percent of all VC cash for the third quarter of 2014, or $623 million across 140 deals.

That’s up from $678 million across 100 deals during the second quarter, according to consultancy Mercom Capitol Group.

Telehealth, in fact, had its best quarter to date, raking in $101 million in 16 deals. Revenue cycle management and data analytics also did well, with $75 million and $71 million, respectively.

On the heels of a torrid second quarter, Q3 venture capital funding for the broader health IT sector dropped nearly 50 percent, Mercom officials said in a new report. The study showed a higher number of VC deals in the third quarter compared to Q2, but in terms of cash raised, Q3 paled in comparison. 

[Related: How Apple Pay could change healthcare security.]

Still, the numbers were hardly disappointing. Q3 marked the second-biggest quarter to date. The health IT sector raised $956 million across 212 deals globally, compared with the whopping $1.8 billion across 161 deals the quarter prior to that, analysts noted. Digital health companies have attracted $3.6 billion in VC cash since 2010.

Mercom officials noted another interesting characteristic of the third quarter: record funding for companies abroad.

"Companies from countries outside of the United States accounted for a record 21 percent share of the funding," said Raj Prabhu, chief executive officer and co-founder of Mercom Capital Group, in a prepared statement. "While consumer-centric companies attracted the majority of the funding this quarter, M&A has been a different story with the majority of the deals involving practice-focused companies."

The five biggest winners in Q3 were China's DXY, which bills itself as the largest healthcare services community group, bringing in $70 million; Proteus Digital Health, which saw VC funding reach $52 million; Teladoc, with $50.3 million; China's Chunyu Yisheng, a digital physician consultation app company, with $50 million; and payer software company HealthEdge, which brought in $30 million.

This article originally appeared on mHealth News sister site Healthcare IT News

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