One of my favorite quotes (even though it is probably apocryphal) is the answer the notorious thief Willie Sutton gave to a reporter who asked why he robbed banks; “Because that’s where the money is!” If you follow the money, you can see where venture capitalists think the growth will occur in the technology industry.
According to a new report by CB Insights, there was a global slowdown in venture capital funding for tech companies in the first quarter of this year. Swimming against that out-going tide, however, digital health companies saw strong increase in that same period. More than $2 billion in new investments were announced, spread across 316 individual deals. If this pace keeps up for the whole year, it would result in nearly a $3 billion increase in funding over the levels for the past two years. It would be the largest increase since the $3 billion jump from 2013 to 2014.
Clearly, there are investors who agree with us that there is a lot of money to be made with wearable technology for health and medical applications, along with other digital health innovations. Not all of these investments are going to back winners, but it’s encouraging to see that the VC folks are willing to back this segment when they’re pulling back from others.
