The digital health market appears to be holding its own with venture capital funds flowing in rapidly this quarter, keeping pace with last year's growth. Though most bets by venture capitalists were on US-based healthcare companies in the second quarter, for the first time, nine Indian healthcare IT companies have received VC funding in a single quarter.

Among the Indian firms, Cooey, a developer of health monitoring Internet of Things (IoT) app that intends to collect, store, analyse and provide insights of vital signs for patients, raised $470,000 from Digital Circuits President, Subhash Goyal.

Previously known as HealthKartPlus, 1mg, an online price shopping and drug delivery company that allows users to search for medicines and get information on dosage, common uses and warnings, also managed to raise $6 million from MakeMyTrip founder Deep Kalra, Sequoia Capital, Omidyar Network, Intel Capital and Kae Capital.

AllizHealth, a provider of cloud-based wellness and preventive healthcare solutions, also managed to secure $350,000 from Aniruddha Malpani of the Malpani Infertility Clinic) Ranjan Pai, CEO of the Manipal Education and Medical Group, Kishore Ganji, Founder and CEO of Astir IT Solutions, entrepreneur turned serial investor Sanjay Mehta, and Prashant Choksey, Founder and CEO of Choksey Constructions and Co-founder of Mumbai Angels.

While HealthifyMe, a developer of a health and fitness mobile app, raised an undisclosed amount of funding from Micromax, Healthians, an online healthcare marketplace that helps users discover affordable healthcare, using a quality and price transparency tool, raised an undisclosed amount of funding from cricketer Yuvraj Singh’s YouWeCan Ventures, an early stage venture fund.

Truweight, a provider of weight loss counselling for people throughout India, also raised an undisclosed amount from Kalaari Capital.

Global deals

A report from digital health start-up seed fund Rock Health has noted that venture capital funding for digital health companies globally in the first half of 2015 reached $2.1 billion, closely mirroring total funding in 2014. Some 139 deals, across 136 companies, closed with an average deal size of $15.4 million.

The company has said although the number of deals were fewer than last year at this time, 139 deals in 2015 compared with 146 in 2014, the average deal size was $400,000 bigger this time around. It has pointed out that digital health is not slowing down and that the sound business fundamentals have shown the way, despite signs that parts of the market appear to be overheating.

Raj Prabhu, CEO and Co-Founder of Mercom Capital Group, which has put out its own report on the rise in VC funding in digital health said, in the healthcare IT sector, companies raised more money through initial public offerings than venture capital this quarter.

“Growth in public market financing is an encouraging sign for companies in this sector as it opens up another avenue for funding and an exit path for investors. That said, out of 14 IPOs since 2012, six have decreased in value over their IPO price as of the end of last quarter," he said.

Venture capitalists appear to have poured $19.19 billion into US start-ups in the second quarter, almost close to levels seen in the dotcom era, it has been pointed out.

comment COMMENT NOW