Despite a large deal activity discrepancy, biotech funding actually topped digital health funding in 2015, as biotech firms raised over $6B, a multi-year high.
Digital health startups continued to outpace biotech deal activity, with digital health reaching an all-time high of 891 deals in 2015, thanks to early-stage activity. The biotech space, meanwhile, saw 473 deals. That’s an advantage of 418 deals for digital health (or 88% more deals).
That’s a more lopsided deal count for digital health versus biotech than in the previous year. In 2014, digital health had 268 more deals than biotech, or 57% more deals.
Overall digital health deals grew 21% in 2015 versus 2014, while biotech was range-bound with just 2 more deals versus the previous year.
Digital health and biotech dollars invested
Despite the large deal activity discrepancy, biotech funding actually topped digital health funding in 2015, as biotech firms raised over $6B, a multi-year high. Overall there were over 6 $100M+ equity financings in biotech, including two giant Series As: a $320M Series A financing to Immunocore, in addition to a $217M Series A financing to Denali Therapeutics.
Digital health was just narrowly edged out in funding. However, the sector continues to garner large deals in its own right. Mega-rounds to digital health companies in 2015 included a $394M Series D to Guahao Technologies, a $200M corporate minority investment into NantHealth, as well as $100M+ financings for unicorns Oscar Health, ZocDoc, and 23andMe.
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