Tag: cb insights

CB Insights State of Digital Health Q1 2025

Posted on by Jason Barry

CB Insights put out its State of Digital Health report for the first quarter, and it looks like it’ll take more than a stock market nosedive to stop the health tech rebound.

Although some of the themes might sound familiar to those that keep up with Rock Health’s analysis – primarily more funding directed toward fewer companies – CB Insights adds some interesting findings that it broke down into four main buckets.

Investors are concentrating their capital. Total VC funding jumped 47% QoQ to reach the highest level seen since 2022, even as the total number of rounds dropped 9%. (Obligatory Disclaimer: CB Insights’ definition of “digital health” includes more AI drug discovery and clinical trials than Rock Health).

  • One of the most striking changes was in investment size: median late-stage checks grew 96% QoQ, compared to 41% for mid-stage and 25% for early-stage rounds. [Chart 1]

Mega-rounds are back, and AI is claiming most of them. Funding from $100M+ mega-rounds surged to $2.5B across 11 deals in Q1, capturing 46% of total investment (highest since 2021).

  • AI startups secured 8 of these 11 mega-rounds, a strong signal of where investors are expecting outsized returns. AI startups pulled in 60% of Q1 funding [Chart 2]

Billion-dollar moves mark an M&A revival. M&A activity surged 27% to 51 transactions in Q1, with the U.S. demonstrating “renewed market confidence in high-value digital health platforms.”

  • Q1 featured two $1B+ acquisitions, with Roper Technologies acquiring autism care software provider CentralReach for $1.6B, and Paulus Holdings picking digital pharmacy platform Alto Pharmacy for $1.5B. [Chart 3]

Unicorn creation rebounds, driven by AI platforms. Digital health saw 6 new unicorns minted in Q1, more than all of 2024 and the highest quarterly total since Q2 2022.

  • With half focused on AI for provider workflows, the report suggests investor conviction is highest where AI directly supports care delivery. [Chart 4]

The Takeaway

CB Insights just delivered more evidence that the digital health market is impressively resilient, even if its definition of that market is a little wider than we’re used to.

Mayo Clinic Tops Hospital AI Readiness Index

Posted on by Jason Barry

The ambient temperature is rising, and CB Insights just launched its Hospital AI Readiness Index to determine which health systems are most prepared for the shift.

The index is based on an analysis of top private-sector systems in the U.S. (by hospital count), ranked by how prepared they are to adapt to a rapidly evolving AI landscape across two key pillars: 

  • Innovation – measures a system’s track record of developing or acquiring novel AI capabilities, also considers the presence of an AI-dedicated research center
  • Execution – measures a system’s ability to bring AI into clinical practice, also considers internal AI deployments across business and back-office functions 

Without further ado, here’s CB Insight’s first list of AI-ready systems:

Mayo Clinic topped the innovation charts by leading all systems in terms of raw AI investment count (including participation in big rounds from Abridge and Cerebras Systems), while also filing 50+ AI patents in areas like cardiovascular health and oncology.

  • Intermountain ranked second due in part to the AI focus of its venture arm, which invested in Gyant prior to the engagement platform getting scooped up by Fabric.
  • Cleveland Clinic rounded out the top three with a high volume of AI partnerships, including work with PathAI to enhance translational research using pathology algorithms.

High execution scores were driven by AI business relationships and product launches, such as Mayo Clinic’s teaming up with Techcyte to help providers use AI to improve lab testing.

  • Another standout on this front was Banner Health, which is working with Regard to cut down on administrative burdens by automating tasks like notetaking and chart reviews.
  • Johns Hopkins also received high marks after partnering with Healthy.io to offer digital wound care services to patients.

The Takeaway

It’s tough not to love a good stack-ranking of health systems, and this is the best we’ve come across for AI readiness (and potential AI partners). Hats off to the 25 systems that made CB Insights’ inaugural list!

CB Insights Digital Health 150 Report 2022

Posted on by Jason Barry

CB Insights released its annual Digital Health 150 rankings of the most promising private digital health startups, and it was interesting to see how dramatically the landscape evolved over the past year.

Methodology (maybe more of a Disclaimer): The startups that made the final cut were selected from a pool of 13k applicants based on “proprietary Mosaic scores,” company business models, funding, investor profiles, competitive positioning, tech novelty, and plenty of other metrics. Getting your company to purchase CB Insights’ data products wasn’t listed as one of them, although it probably wouldn’t hurt your chances.

With that out of the way, let’s dive into some of the biggest trends that emerged in the Digital Health 150 pictured above (here’s a high-res version).

  • Early-stage innovation: This year’s Digital Health 150 included a huge share of high flying up-and-comers, with nearly half of the list at Series A or earlier in their growth. These players included Equum Medical (acute care telehealth), Vori Health (hybrid MSK treatment), Playback Health (mixed media patient-provider communications), and Homeward (rural healthcare provider).
  • Diagnostics focus: The screening, monitoring, & diagnostics category led with 29 startups (25%), including Babyscripts (virtual maternity care), Ixlayer (precision health testing), and Enlitic (medical imaging AI). That category was followed by interoperability & data (12%), virtual care (11%), and patient engagement (11%). These categories clearly have a ton of momentum, but growing success leads to growing saturation.
  • Mental health momentum: Although the treatment indications took some time to sort out manually, we counted 24 startups building mental health solutions, a big step up from the 10 that were included last year. It would have been more surprising if it were any other area.
  • Few repeat showings: Around 90% of this year’s cohort wasn’t on last year’s list, which was apparently due to record M&A activity and public exits in 2021. Repeat showings included names that are tough to argue with like Xealth, Redox, and Maven Clinic.
  • Top investors: General Catalyst was the most active investor in this year’s cohort, backing 13 of the companies since 2017 (Ex. Equip, Casana, SWORD Health). Insight Partners was a close second (10), followed by 7wire (6), and Plug and Play (6).

The Takeaway

Lists like these usually get some pushback because of the methodology or glaring company exclusions, but this year’s Digital Health 150 cohort feels pretty well aligned with the high momentum names that keep popping up in our own coverage. For what it’s worth, here were some of social media’s most commonly mentioned exclusions: Ada Health, Awell, Cityblock, Innovaccer, Memora, Ribbon, Turquoise, TytoCare, and Zus.

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