providers at the front lines of the coronavirus pandemic: 68 of the upstarts that nabbed funding in Q1 develop tools for providers — compared with 15 and 41 that cater to payers and consumers, respectively.
Half the megadeals in Q1 2020 occurred with firms developing provider-facing solutions that streamline care delivery and back-end tasks — which should prove even more need-to-have as hospitals stare down continued outbreaks. For context, megadeals are defined as individual funding rounds amounting to at least $100 million — and there were a total of six in Q1, accounting for one-third of the quarter's funding, Rock Health notes.
And half of the winners of megadeals sell provider-facing solutions, including precision medicine upstart Tempus, connected device maker Outset, and research-supporting data analytics developer Verana Health.
Telehealth firms were also investor cash magnets in Q1 — and we think 2020 will be a landmark year for telehealth funding as adoption among docs and patients continues to skyrocket. In its latest newsletter, StartUp Health offered a glimpse into its next , which reveals that telemedicine startups worldwide saw a 1,800% increase in year-over-year funding growth in Q1 2020.
Telemedicine has been slow to take off in the US — but the pandemic is pushing more patients onto virtual channels as providers urge only people who need urgent care to venture to the ER. There will be an estimated