Big funding rounds
That hasn’t stopped all funding, of course. Recent large health-tech funding rounds include a $150 million investment into Flatiron District telehealth company Ro and $105 million for in-home care provider ConcertoCare, also based in the Flatiron District.
“There have been companies raising meaningful financing rounds in 2022, so it is certainly not that no one can do it,” said Jordan Nof, managing partner at Tusk Venture Partners, which has made several health-tech investments. “But the speed at which companies were able to raise money and build really large businesses was unprecedented in 2020, 2021.”
That was never going to last forever, Nof added, but investors are still looking to make deals. Venture firms have a lot of capital raised from their partners over the past two years that needs to be put to work. The pace is just moderating.
Healthcare is still attractive to many investors overall. It is an increasingly large part of the country’s gross domestic product and still seeing significant demand for innovation driven by COVID-19, noted Peter Micca, partner and national health-tech leader, audit and assurance, at Deloitte & Touche LLP.
“The demand for care is really going to continue and far exceed supply for the near term,” Micca said. “So while industry sectors are always impacted by macroeconomic conditions, [healthcare] is insulated to a degree.”
A recent report from Deloitte found investment in med-tech, which refers largely to companies making government-regulated products, increased 67% from 2017 to the end of 2021, to reach nearly $20 billion.
Midtown-based diagnostic testing company LetsGetChecked on March 29 said it would acquire genome-sequencing company Veritas Genetics and its spin-off, Veritas Intercontinental, though terms were not disclosed.
NoMad-based telehealth company Thirty Madison, best known for hair loss and migraine treatments, agreed in February to combine with Nurx, an online company best known for providing access to birth control products—with no financial terms disclosed.