Health Tech 50: the most impactful investors, ranked
An annual list of venture capitalists to put on your radar.
The Health Tech Forward team is thrilled to introduce a new initiative — the most relevant, complete, and insightful list of global digital health venture capitalists.
We want you to know investors that bet big to stay ahead of the curve. Bold vision of these VCs helped many founders scale their solutions and move us all closer to the future of more accessible and transparent healthcare. Now that digital health is (finally!) having its moment, join us to recognise the most influential investors changing the game in health.
The ranking will go live in September, but before we get there, here’s why we think it matters and what criteria we will use to make the list.
What is Health Tech 50?
Health Tech 50 is a platform where we acknowledge forward-looking VCs allocating capital to speed up the transition beyond traditional healthcare. We think of it as a celebration of the most powerful accomplishments across the global health tech community — and hopefully, it will also act as a reference point for VCs, LPs and entrepreneurs across the globe.
Why does it matter now?
We are operating within a healthcare system that is majorly reactive and inefficient. For decades, it has been wrestling with the same set of dilemmas:
- The lack of health information exchange capabilities
- Problems with public health reporting
- Troubles reaching at-risk populations
- And multiple others
The pandemic exposed just how fragmented our health system was, putting an additional challenge on people’s well-being. It also revealed the lack of investment in the public health infrastructure and many challenges of private and public institutions to fast-track innovation. Most importantly, it showed us that we must prioritise technology to bridge the gap.
2021 was a turning point for the health tech market. Fueled by the need to deliver digital solutions to patients amid the pandemic, global funding for health tech startups hit record levels, reaching a whopping $57.2B.
As both an investment opportunity and a key to offering new solutions to the world’s old problems, technology shapes large parts of the transition we need to make to move beyond traditional healthcare. Here, venture capital’s role — as the accelerator helping commercialise emerging technologies — is more important than ever.
As a digital health community, we lined up three crucial findings:
a) Covid-19 has disrupted essential health services
b) A lack of data and analytics halts the progress in health
c) Scaling up investment in digital health is essential
The good news is that more and more venture capital and business community leaders are coming to realise this. Health technology is gradually becoming the new frontier in venture investing, which means a new chapter in health is about to begin.
What is our vision?
Our goal is simple: to inspire more investors to join the change. We want to raise awareness around the traditional medical system’s problems and encourage more investors to join the wave of digital transformation powered by data and technology.
Here’s our step-by-step plan on how to get there:
Step 1: To build an up-to-date ranking of the most impactful global health tech VCs
Step 2: To recognise their contribution to the traditional health system makeover
Step 3: To gather 50 leading investors for our annual Health Tech Forward conference to network and collaborate further
What is our scoring methodology?
Picture a great investor. What defines them? The number of unicorn portfolio companies? Sums they invest? We believe that factors like brand awareness, SDGs and prioritising companies focused on positive change when looking for the next investment are just as important.
So, our scoring system criteria don’t just boil down to basic VC measures of success, such as pure financials. We consider both direct and indirect metrics, including the founder’s score, the number of investments that contribute to revolutionising our healthcare, and many more. You can check out the details here: healthtech50.com.
And last but not least, we value the voice of our health tech community. Nominate or vote for your favourite investor, and your voice will contribute 10% to the final investor ranking.
More updates are on the way!
Follow us on LinkedIn and stay tuned as we will be going live with the ranking on September 8, 2022!
