Tag: rock health

Rock Health H1 2026: Durable Roots, Shifting Routes

Posted on by Jason Barry

Rock Health just dropped its H1 digital health funding overview, and the halftime report shows a market that knows where it’s going, even if the way it gets there keeps changing.

Here’s H1 2026 by the numbers:

  • Digital health startups raised $7.4B across 244 rounds (up $1B from H1 2025).
  • Median round size climbed from $12M to $14M, the highest since 2022.
  • 19 companies raised 20 mega-rounds, accounting for 45% of all capital invested.

That last stat is starting to look familiar. Capital concentration was the headline of the Q1 report, and the trend hasn’t let up. 

  • Just over 8% of rounds absorbed nearly half the capital, and some companies aren’t even waiting a full year between nine-figure checks.
  • Garner Health’s $100M Series E landed three months after its Series D, and Aidoc grabbed its second $150M in under a year.

Mental health is still the belle of the ball. It was the top-funded clinical indication for the seventh straight year, led by Talkiatry ($210M) and Grow Therapy ($150M).

  • Weight management took the silver on the back of the insatiable appetite for GLP-1s.
  • Both categories share a secret weapon: 64% of their H1 raisers go direct-to-consumer, versus 29% of digital health overall.

The IPO drought is creeping back. After seven exits last year, 2026 hasn’t produced a single digital health IPO, and Oura’s S-1 is the only one on file.

  • This year’s exit action is all M&A. H1 saw 115 acquisitions, including 71 in Q2 alone (the busiest quarter since 2021), with revenue cycle management consolidating fastest.

Where are all the moats? The H1 report’s big question was what actually counts as a durable advantage now that “we have AI” no longer moves the needle.

Rock Health landed on four answers and one graphic: 

  • founders with real domain expertise (sharpens product and buyer relationships)
  • platforms scaling to own more workflows (and more context to coordinate tasks)
  • hands-on delivery (forward-deployed engineers are officially a healthcare job)
  • network effects (every new partnership builds on the last so competitors can’t catch up)

The Takeaway

AI made digital health products easier to build than ever, which means the products themselves are no longer the moat. Investors are looking for the same fundamental roots – teams, trust, and traction – but the routes to find them are shifting faster than ever.

Wearables Are Here, the Outcomes Aren’t

Posted on by Jason Barry

Wearables have come a long way since the first Apple Watch launched back in 2015, so Rock Health crunched the numbers from its latest Consumer Adoption Survey to see just how far they’ve actually come – and how far they have left to go.

Everybody’s health-maxxing. Rock Health’s survey data showed that 57% of U.S. adults now own at least one wearable or connected device [Chart: Wearable Ownership].

  • Smart watches still dominate the form factor mix, but consumers have been building out their personal health tech ecosystems, with average ownership now up to 1.5 devices. 

The engagement numbers are off the charts. Most wearable owners wear their devices 5+ days per week (83%) to track physical activity (35%), sleep (26%), and heart rate (21%).

  • Nearly half of wearable owners (47%) have used a wearable for 3+ years, and only 23% have ever switched brands [Chart: Usage Snapshot].

So people are getting healthier, right? The general consensus is a resounding “maybe.”

  • While certain populations – like those managing chronic conditions – would get a ton of value from continuously monitoring their health data, those that could benefit the most remain the least likely to own wearables.
  • Part of that is because positioning reinforces reach. Oura’s marketing around finding a healthy balance resonates with yogis, and Whoop’s marketing around high-level performance resonates with marathon runners.  

Either way, the data is coming to the visit. As consumers generate more health data, Rock Health highlighted a few key trends that are worth keeping an eye on.

  • Vendors are crossing categories. Consumer-focused brands are piling into healthcare (Ex. Oura and Whoop launching telehealth services), and clinical-focused brands are heading in the opposite direction (Ex. Dexcom pushing the Stelo on metabolically curious consumers).
  • Health systems need to choose wisely. New access points are disrupting typical patient flows and referrals. A consumer whose device flags irregular sleep patterns and routes them to a specialist may never loop in their traditional PCP. Systems will need to determine where partnerships can create real bridges.
  • For public health, the next chapter will come down to whether wearables can evolve into infrastructure that improves outcomes for everyone. That will depend less on generating more data, and more on expanding adoption across underrepresented populations and earning trust on how data is collected and used.

The Takeaway

The technology has finally converged to the point where AI can distill practical insights from a soup of data from wearables, EHRs, and countless other sources. The question now is whether the health outcomes will follow.

Rock Health Q1: Capital Continues Concentrating

Posted on by Jason Barry

Spring is finally here, and Rock Health’s Q1 funding recap shows that the investing landscape is definitely looking greener than last year.

Digital health startups raised $4B on the dot. That’s a whole billion higher than Q1 2025, although the gains were far from evenly distributed.

Here’s Q1 2026 by the numbers:

  • Digital health funding totaled $4B across 110 rounds (vs. $3B and 122 rounds last year).
  • Average round size climbed to $36.7M (highest since Q4 2021).
  • Rock Health counted 12 mega-rounds over $100M.

That last bullet defined the quarter. A dozen companies accounted for 59% of all capital deployed in Q1, one of the highest concentrations Rock Health has ever seen.

  • Round sizes have consistently increased every quarter since 2024, and there haven’t been this many nine-figure checks in a quarter since the pandemic peak in 2022. 
  • Whoop landed $575M at a $10B valuation, Verily raised $300M as it steps out from under Alphabet’s umbrella, and OpenEvidence’s fundraising blitz added another $250M.

The check sizes only tell half the story. One of the reasons why startups are raising bigger late-stage rounds is because they’re waiting longer to go public. 

  • Hinge and Omada broke the ice, but all it took was a little “geopolitical uncertainty” to spook investors and close the IPO window right behind them.
  • If the rest of 2026 pans out like the first quarter, we’d see close to 50 mega-rounds, almost double last year’s count.

AI is now the operating environment. The tech has become so ubiquitous that Rock Health said it will no longer be using “AI-enabled startups” as a distinct category in its funding reports.

  • The broader market remains bullish on the value of AI, but if everyone has it then it stops being a differentiator.
  • The AI startups successfully raising are the ones moving earliest into complex use cases, like Doctronic’s prescribing pilot in Utah or Qualified Health’s governance platform for health systems.

The Takeaway

Q1 mostly brought more of the same. Investors are active but selective, and the chasm between the Davids and Goliaths isn’t getting any smaller. AI is helping startups move faster than ever, but the rest of the year should help clarify whose momentum is actually durable.

Rock Health: Innovation at the Turn of 2026

Posted on by Jason Barry

Rock Health is wrapping up the year in style by updating its Innovation Maturity Curve with the hottest trends of 2025 and sharing its predictions for what lies ahead.

The curve uses three major data points to plot innovation:

  • Research volume – gauges the potential of a topic through PubMed publications.
  • Venture funding – tracks investment as a leading indicator of commercial interest.
  • Partnership activity – uses industry partnerships as a proxy for commercial traction.

The pace is picking up. Here’s a look at the categories that defined the year:

Longevity (Maturity Score: Developing) – Companies are pushing past one-off diagnostics to see whether personalized baselines can anchor ongoing care. Function Health just hauled in a massive $298M Series B for its “operating system for human health,” and other players like Hone Health have started expanding their models with in-home services.

  • Keep an eye on: How much will insights on hormones or heart health translate into adjustments that patients actually act on? Rock Health expects this segment to hinge on turning long-arc patterns into timely guidance that’s both credible and valuable.

Mental Health Chatbots (Maturity Score: Emerging) – Some AI chatbots might be shutting down, but just as many are doubling down. Slingshot burst onto the scene with $93M to build “the world’s first foundation model for psychology,” and incumbents like Spring Health have even started launching bots to evaluate the safety of other bots.

  • Keep an eye on: Regulatory scrutiny is intensifying as states begin banning AI-driven therapy. Some startups might be able to navigate the roadblocks, but Rock Health thinks others might pivot to lower-risk territory like keeping patients engaged between visits.

Health Benefits 2.0 (Maturity Score: Emerging) – OOP spending continues to climb, while employers just notched the steepest benefit cost increase in 15 years. Those pressures cracked a window for non-traditional models to gain traction, such as ICHRA frontrunners Thatch and Venteur.

  • Keep an eye on: The benefits pressure cooker is heating up in 2026, which means this category isn’t going anywhere. As more costs shift to consumers, Rock Health anticipates the benefits experience to start looking even more like a set of adjacent marketplaces rather than a single plan.

The Takeaway 

Digital health is moving faster than ever, and AI is only going to keep accelerating innovation. Rock Health’s full report is well worth checking out for more details on these categories and other up-and-coming segments like wearables (smart rings are especially hot), precision medicine (digital twins had a big year), and climate health (think allergies and air pollution).

Rock Health Q3 Overview: Signals Out of Sync

Posted on by Jason Barry

Rock Health’s always-excellent digital health market overview painted an interesting picture for Q3, with venture funding continuing to climb despite several “signals out of sync.”

We’re steady on the surface. Digital health startups raised $3.5B across 107 deals in the third quarter, outpacing last year by a decent margin and bringing the year-to-date total to $9.9B across 351 rounds [Chart: Q3 Funding].

  • Deal volume continued to slow, but fewer raises yielded larger checks. Q3 saw 107 funding rounds, down from 120 in Q2 and 124 in Q1.
  • The average raise in 2025 now stands at $28.1M (up from $20.4M in 2024), and we’ve already seen 19 mega-rounds above $100M – surpassing last year’s total with a quarter left to go.

The middle is murky. Rock Health rolled up its sleeves and calculated widely variable trends in mid-market funding.

  • Series B deal flow has thinned, with just 30 raises through Q3, compared to an average of more than 60 annually over the past three years.
  • As fewer startups reach Series B, those that do are stretching the range of what a B round can be. Series B deal sizes so far in 2025 spanned $11M–$210M ($199M) – the widest spread since the boom of 2021.
  • Pair that with the persistent prevalence of unlabeled raises, and the thinning Series B pipeline suggests that startups are traveling increasingly winding roads to reach scale.

Activity is concentrating around workflows. The biggest theme of the Q3 report was that Clinical Workflow and Non-Clinical Workflow are now 2025’s two most-funded value propositions, capturing a combined 42% of the total funding [Chart: Value Propositions].

  • A $1.3B lead separates these value propositions from the rest of the pack, and workflow tools now appear to be in a league of their own.

Startups are heading horizontal. The report also highlighted a growing group of startups pushing into adjacent workflows, such as Abridge’s partnership with Highmark Health (expanding into prior auths) and Judi Health acquiring Amino (moving into patient navigation).

  • M&A volume is up 37% from last year, with 166 acquisitions through Q3 (already topping 2024’s 121 total), in large part due to these horizontal moves. 

The Takeaway

The numbers look steady, but the market is also steadily splitting in half. That means that the real story going forward won’t be whether digital health startups can attract investors (they can), but whether companies can demonstrate the impact needed to land on the right side of the divide. 

Catching the Right Wave in Digital Health

Posted on by Jason Barry

The ocean of digital health innovation seems to have a wave of new trends breaking every year, which is why Rock Health teamed up with LG NOVA to give enterprises a framework for “discerning promising currents from passing swells.”

Riding the wrong hype cycle can strain health systems’ limited resources with costly implementations or investment mistakes, so Rock Health divided the digital health landscape into 50 segments to see which show the most promise based on:

  • Value potential (VP) – share of total digital health venture funding, disease burden (degree of economic cost), and addressable population size.
  • Capturable opportunity (CO) – funding velocity, funding concentration (share of capital already held by large companies), and market maturity.

The “Goldilocks” waves include segments that are big enough to support a large market and ripe enough (but not too ripe) for new entrants to gain traction. [Chart: Strongest DH Segments]

  • High VP, High CO: Weight Management stood out with the highest scores in both VP and CO. The disease burden and funding levels don’t get much higher, and the balance of early- and late-stage companies signals a strong market with room for new entrants. 
  • Low VP, High CO: Patient Adherence was docked for its smaller share of overall digital health funding, but stood out for its favorable funding concentration and market maturity.
  • High VP, Low CO: Disease Monitoring had the opposite mix. The segment enjoys a large slice of the funding pie, but most of that is getting eaten by a few mega companies.
  • Low VP, Low CO: Dermatology received the low marks across the board, with poor scores for funding velocity, disease burden, and overall share of funding.

To complement its framework, Rock Health analyzed over 70 digital health unicorns to find other success signals from waves that the industry is already riding. Unicorns tended to:

  • separate from the herd with larger Series C rounds (ex. Abridge)
  • support care delivery or access and are often consumer-facing (ex. Wheel)
  • be therapeutic area agnostic w/ broad addressable markets (ex. Included Health)

The Takeaway

Timing the digital health market is no small feat, but Rock Health’s framework provides a helpful tool for those looking to catch the best wave with their investments and implementations.

Rock Health Q1 2025 Funding Recap, Late-Stage is Back

Posted on by Jason Barry

In a first quarter packed with uncertainty and policy shifts, digital health didn’t skip a beat.

Rock Health’s Q1 Digital Health Market Update counted $3B in venture funding across 122 rounds (up from $2.7B in Q1 2024), and it sounds like there’s finally some optimism in the air again.

Early-stage startups dominated the deal count, with Seed, Series A, and Series B raises comprising 83% of labeled rounds in Q1 (in line with 86% last year).

  • Those included some extra-large investments like Achira’s $33M Seed, Open Evidence’s $75M Series A, and Hippocratic AI’s $141M Series B.

The bigger story was the triumphant return of late-stage mega-rounds, headlined by Innovaccer’s $275M Series F and Abridge’s $250M Series D.

  • While Q1 only clocked five raises that were Series D or later, this cohort lifted the quarter’s median Series D+ round size to $105M – almost double the $55M median Series D+ size seen in 2024.

Success in this climate requires “leapfrogging.” Rock health devoted a large section of the report to its four strategies for leapfrogging over market shifts using their unique circumstances.

  • Tapestry Weaving – using M&A to integrate new features and offerings into your capability mix. Of the 46 M&A deals tracked in Q1, 67% involved digital health startups acquiring other digital health startups, up from 53% across 2024.
  • Modular Tech Stacks – designing flexible infrastructure that reduces dependencies and allows for new integrations. Lumeris’ newly introduced Tom AI platform is a perfect example, leveraging capabilities of 60+ LLMs depending on use case.
  • Platforms and Channel Partners – building platforms that can plug in channel partners and key experiences. Q1 was brimming with good examples, including Eli Lilly bringing GLP-1 partners onto Lilly Direct and Teladoc expanding its Connected Care Program.
  • Engaging Disruptors – embracing solutions that challenge the status quo. Rock Health highlights Labcorp’s participation in Teal Health’s $10M raise, which proactively aligned it with an in-home cervical cancer screening startup that’s disrupting traditional pap tests.

The Takeaway

Following a year of valuation corrections and down-rounds, digital health VCs are showing signs of life, but we’ll have to wait until Rock Health’s next report to see if the momentum can stand up to a trade war.

Rock Health 2024 Overview: David vs Goliath

Posted on by Jason Barry

If last year’s digital health market felt like David vs. Goliath, Rock Health’s full-year funding recap has you covered with the reason why.

Here’s 2024 by the numbers:

  • U.S. digital health funding totaled $10.1B across 497 rounds 
  • Continued downtrend in investment (2023 was $10.8B total, 503 rounds)
  • Shift to early-stage companies drove the dropoff

There’s a tale of two trends unfolding between the early-stage startups and late-stage incumbents battling for market share, and neither side is helping out the funding total.

  • Investors began focusing on early-stage startups throughout 2024, and a whopping 86% of labeled rounds went to Seed, Series A, and Series B startups.
  • Larger companies also started to see smaller checks, with the median Series C and D raise clocking in at $50M and $55M, respectively (down ~10% from 2023). 

The shift to earlier-stage investments was driven by an appetite for startups that can show traction with small/medium sized organizations, especially among increasingly influential mega-VCs like General Catalyst and Andreessen Horowitz.

  • These smaller orgs want gen AI capabilities, aren’t a top target for massive IT players, and can be a goldmine for the startups that can fill that gap.  
  • The mega-VC influence in digital health follows a broader trend, with PitchBook data showing that 50% of all venture capital raised in the U.S. last year went to just nine firms… out of 391 total VCs. GC and a16z happened to rank #1 and #2.

Since it wouldn’t be a 2024 recap without the magic two letters: AI investment reached a fever pitch, and AI-first startups took home 37% of the overall funding.

  • Goliaths in this space include incumbents like Epic, the healthcare divisions of Big Tech players like Microsoft, and younger startups with the warchest to compete like Commure.
  • Rock Health sees a future where the AI Davids can continue thriving by addressing specialized use cases or smaller customer segments, as long as they keep an eye on the roadmaps of their bigger competition to avoid getting stepped on.

The Takeaway

If the healthcare industry wants to keep innovating, it needs companies of all shapes and sizes to make it happen. Rock Health’s 2024 recap is a good reminder that not every startup needs to be a Goliath, and that the Davids are still finding success by right-sizing their operation to the customers they serve.

Rock Health’s Innovation Maturity Curve Heading Into 2025

Posted on by Jason Barry

Rock Health is wrapping up the year in style by updating its Innovation Maturity Curve with the hottest trends of 2024, and sharing its predictions for what lies ahead.

The curve uses three major data categories to plot digital health innovations:

  • Research volume – gauges the potential of a topic through PubMed publications
  • Venture funding – tracks investment as a leading indicator of commercial interest 
  • Partnership activity – uses industry partnerships as a proxy for commercial traction

Here’s how 2023’s biggest trends progressed over the course of the year:

AI in Healthcare (Maturity Score: Developing) – Digital Health Wire readers know the AI hype cycle is still in full swing, with AI-first digital health startups landing $3.3B in venture capital through the end of Q3. AI partnerships also surged (Rock Health counted 80+, an undercount if anything), but 2024’s plateau in research activity gave another sign that we’re transitioning to practical applications and commercialization. 

  • Keep an eye on: We’re entering a phase of AI consolidation, with cutthroat competition for major accounts in segments like ambient documentation. As Big Tech inks their own partnerships and juggernauts like Epic double down on new features, “AI enablement will become table stakes across solutions rather than a core differentiator.”

Digital Obesity Care (Maturity Score: Developing) – Moving up from “Nascent” on last year’s curve, the conversation around obesity care has been transformed by GLP-1s and contributed to a rise in digital platforms to help patients access treatment and support.

  • Keep an eye on: Increased competition necessitates differentiation. With GLP-1 access still in flux, players need to build momentum with more than just prescribing (precision treatment planning, biometric tracking, support for co-occurring conditions like PCOS).

Food as Medicine (Maturity Score: Emerging) – FaM moved from a niche term to a buzzword (props to Rock Health for helping it happen), with category funding doubling on-year after big raises from players like Foodsmart ($200M). Payors, providers, and grocers contributed to over 30 new FaM partnerships this year.

  • Keep an eye on: FaM innovation is closely tied to reimbursement models for food delivery and nutrition consultations, so continued success hinges on sustained policy support. Assuming that happens – seems likely given the Make America Healthy Again chatter – 2025 could be another huge year.

The Takeaway

With the digital health recalibration now (mostly) behind us, Rock Health expects 2025 to give innovators a chance to demonstrate a measurable impact on outcomes and continue their trek along the maturity curve. The whole report is well worth checking out for details on smaller up-and-coming categories like new wearable form factors, digital twins, and climate tech.

Rock Health Q3 Update: Tapestry Weaving

Posted on by Jason Barry

Rock Health’s Q3 Digital Health Market Update showed that investors have found comfort strolling down a path of “focused funding,” with last quarter’s innovation story shifting from transaction volume to market positioning.

The U.S. digital health sector logged $2.4B in venture funding across 110 rounds in Q3 2024, bringing year-to-date funding to $8.2B. 

  • While Q3’s 110 rounds marked a slowdown from 136 in Q1 and 133 in Q2, average investment size held steady at $22M quarter-over-quarter, indicating that investors are honing their focus while continuing to make sharp plays.
  • The analysis also noted that investments are overlapping with partnerships, with companies keen to support startups they’ve already worked with in crowded spaces like healthcare AI – as seen with NVIDIA and Hippocratic AI.

The real narrative behind last quarter’s activity was what Rock Health referred to as “tapestry weaving,” or digital health players building up their offerings to compete with legacy leaders and market incumbents. The related graphic was easy on the eyes.

  • While Q3 mergers and acquisitions were also low at just 21 moves – versus a quarterly average of 37 last year – companies like Dario and Fabric are using M&A to integrate new capabilities and expand their footprint.
  • Like weaving a tapestry, both Dario’s addition of Twill and Fabric’s acquisition of TeamHealth VirtualCare stitched together different solutions to create a more robust platform and address a broader range of customer needs. 

Tapestry weaving isn’t exactly an easy hobby. It involves integrating different products, teams, and go-to-market strategies that all have a chance of backfiring along the way.

  • Big acquisitions help compete for big contracts, but they can also strain the acquirer’s balance sheet.
  • CVS is an easy example. In the last six years, CVS used $88B to add a major payor, a clinic operator, and a home-care provider to its flagship pharmacies. The entire company is now valued at less than the cost of those three moves ($83B current market cap).

The Takeaway

Although the raw count of digital health investments continues to drop off, activity volume isn’t the same as activity quality. The tapestry weaving trend is a reminder that the “true impact of digital health innovation is shaped in the details,” through its investment structures, targeted partnerships, and post-M&A playbooks.

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