Digital healthcare investment deals grow by nearly one-third in 2017

Investors poured $5.8 billion into digital healthcare in 2017, according to Rock Health. That’s an increase of $1.4 billion – or 32.1% – over 2016’s investments. This kind of growth has been standard over the last several years; since 2012, digital healthcare investment has had a compound annual growth rated of about 32%.

According to Rock Research consultant Rachana Jana, the digital healthcare game has moved to the ‘middle innings,’ and we’re “at the end of the beginning of digital health.”

The companies attracting the most attention and investor interest overall in 2017 were those focused on consumer health and wellness: they received about twice as much funding as any other category.

Rock Health says that large tech companies are now seeing digital healthcare as an area that is “ripe for innovation.”

“Amazon is exploring the use of Alexa’s voice-enabled technology to deliver health information for common issues, and Apple is working to make the omniscient iPhone a central location for patient health records,” the report details.

Read more about Rock Health’s annual report here.