Forecast: On-demand healthcare companies to raise $1B in 2017

on-demand healthcare investments

On-demand healthcare companies, which are defined as those that provide location-based offerings with near-real-time and 24/7 services, will manage to raise $1 billion in funding by the end of 2017, up from over $200 million in 2014.

“On-demand healthcare is fundamentally changing — and enriching — the doctor-patient relationship, making the physician much more accessible to patients while simultaneously reducing costs,” Kaveh Safavi, M.D., J.D., senior managing director for Accenture’s global health business, said in a statement. “With no end to this type of investment in sight, there’s an enormous opportunity for companies to offer fast, convenient and customized user-experiences that ultimately improve the patient experience and outcomes.”

According to Accenture’s findings — excluding the transportation industry — healthcare is the fastest growing on-demand sector, representing one-fifth of total U.S. funding. The number of on-demand health companies has spiked from four in 2010, to 42 in 2014, with annual investment growing at an annual rate of 224 percent over the same period. Funding for primary-care services alone has totaled more than $639 million since 2010. Within the same timeframe, on-demand specialty care, behavioral health, wellness and veterinary companies received a total of roughly $68 million in U.S. funding.

Some of the main forces driving interest and investment in on-demand healthcare are government support that involves telehealth parity laws, attractive economics which presumes lower-cost virtual visits (vs in-person visits), technology maturation and smartphone adoption, as well as cultural adoption that spans different generations.

In addition, innovative payers are also adding on-demand healthcare services as part of the plan to create best-in-class benefits packages to attract and retain members…