Digital health funding has hit $2.1 billion in the first half of the year, according to Rock Health’s mid-year report. There were 139 deals and the average deal size was over $15 million, exceeding 2014’s $14.6 million, though Rock only looks at US deals over $2 million.
The top six categories of 2015 accounted for more than 50% of all funding in the year, with three categories not being ranked in 2014.
The most notable M&A deal was the Under Armour acquisition of MyFitnessPal for $475M in cash.Wearables and enterprise wellness were driven by single big deals – Jawbone and Virgin Pulse, respectively. Both categories, in addition to EHR and clinical workflow did not show up in the 2014 rankings. Big data and analytics also found their way to the top bracket.
When it comes to M&A, Rock tracked 92 deals through the first half of the year, as compared to 95 total in all of 2014. However disclosed deal dollars represent just 13% of the total from last year. The M&A activity in H1 2015 has been dominated by digital health companies acquiring other digital health companies as part of relatively small transactions, such as Welltok/Predilytics, Fitbit/FitStar, Teladoc/StatDoctors, and Elekta/CliniCast. The most notable deal was the Under Armour acquisition of MyFitnessPal for $475 million in cash.
IPO activity is up with five companies going public through July 1st as compared to five overall in 2014. Fitbit led the way as one of the largest IPOs of the year, digital health or otherwise.
