#19 🍩 What the Health - A $129m Series B, Awards Season & Google Brings $1b Downunder
#19 🍩 What the Health - A $129m Series B, Awards Season & Google Brings $1b Downunder
Your fortnightly healthtech TL;DR roundup
It’s December… we made it! Happy Holiday season.
Hasn’t this year been big… and we all deserve a nice long rest after 2 years of constant chaos.
But, it seems many of us are sprinting to the finish line to maximise what’s left. Anyway, I do hope everyone is taking some time out for R&R, self-care and fun this summer without some screens.
PS - If you're new here and want (somewhat) regular semi-funny updates on Healthtech… you should totally subscribe 😉
Quick side note…
I know I always put funding upfront, and content has been a little focused on that side lately, but this by no means reflects the importance I put on it.
Yes, funding is super exciting, a hard slog, and often essential to help fuel growth and development. But it’s not the real metric that matters.
Despite being a little bit “sexy” right now. At the end of the day - it comes down to outcomes and quality businesses. Let’s keep our eyes on the real prize 😉
Noteworthy 🗞️
Funding Fun
🌚 Midnight health scored $4m from nib for a whopping 50% of the biz to lead a “conjoint effort to consolidate the fragmented healthcare industry through a patient-led digital healthcare platform”
💸 Zipline, an Aged & Healthcare compliance SaaS Startup, raised $6m with its sights set on the US in 2022
💰 Harrison bags $129m in one of the biggest series Bs in Aussie history - adding Sonic Healthcare & I-MED Radiology Network as strategic investors
📉Valuations seem to be a big point of debate recently for healthtech companies…
And it’s led to HealthEngine pressing pause on its IPO
😇 LaunchVic finally announce Australian Medical Angels are landing in Vic with a $300k grant to back at least 10 healthtechs over 2 years
🚀Artesian launched a new $100m fund for females with Scale Investors
🤝 CSL the Aussie biotech giant is in talks to acquire Vifor Pharma for $10b
❤️ EBR who create small wireless solutions for treating heart failure is set to IPO with a market val of ~$344m
📊 Careteq sets its sights on a $6m IPO early next year
🤑 The gov is throwing $62m at 9 projects to accelerate research into healthcare
📣 Antler announced its 18 latest investments including WIRL, Bump’n & Sapyen
Worth Knowing
🌎 Google is betting big on digital Downunder Investing $1bn in infrastructure, research and partnerships over the next 5 years
💊 A Vic Doctor wants to treat a patient with MDMA and it taking it to court
💻 2 Sydney doctors developed an AI prediction tool that allows early-warning scores to be integrated with hospital records to predict patient deterioration
💹 Planet Innovation is on a growth spurt achieving record revenue in FY21 of $112m, up 69% from FY20 & Expanding its US capabilities ft acquisitions
🏆 Here come the Awards (I’m already sorry)
⏸ Pause Awards saw 63 people & orgs take away prizes
✅ Fast starters innovators list saw health feature ft. rapid market growth, including:
Seer Medical helping 10k patients access clinical grade epilepsy diagnostics from their homes through a wearable device
InstantScripts who grew its rev by ~100% from 2020-21 predicting that will continue that for the next 3 years
Alt therapies like Australian Natural Therapeutics booming with rev growing >450% over the last year for medicinal cannabis
🎉 Tech23 announced their 23 game changer entrepreneurs, innovators and researchers helping make a better tomorrow…
With healthtech and biotech dominating…
Probably nothing 👀
Mass Dynamics - helps global life scientists transform mass spectrometry data to knowledge ft software
Psylo - Psychedelic-inspired medicine to treat mental illness
Atmo Biosciences - the world’s first ingestible, gas-sensing capsule for monitoring the health of the human gut and its microbiome
Diabetes Neuromathix - generate organ-scale personalised models of type-1 diabetes in their bodies
Nuroflux - a wearable device for continuous monitoring of stroke patient
Synbiote - aims to accelerate the research and development of novel biopharmaceutical products such as vaccines, chemotherapy & hormones
Tessara Therapeutics - a regenerative medicine company developing RealBrain® technology; highly reproducible, synthetically produced, neural micro-tissues grown in the lab, designed to mimic the physiology of the human brain and manufactured at industrial scale
🏎 2021 AFR Fast 100 adds Doctors on Demand & AusDiagnostics
📱25 legendary ladies were dubbed Telstra Health’s Brilliant Women in Digital Health
🚺 Women in Digital Awards also had a heap of healthtech legends lap up the accolades
Ok Enough… US & Beyond the Borders
🏬 CVS Health, a US retail pharmacy giant is shutting 900 stores as consumers go digital
🍎 Apple is backing a new fund, Offline Ventures ft. $100m to invest in startups in personal health, web3 and consumer tech
“The world has gone from mainframes to computer labs, to personal computers, to mobile phones and stuff in our ears and on our wrists. We’re getting to the point where the human is the interface, the human is the network,” says Brit Morin.
🌎 Whoever is doing Googles Health’s PR right now is doing a darn good job …
It’s now 2 years into their 10-year partnership with Mayo clinic
They’re Piloting audio assistant-enabled vaccine booking in India
Google Cloud’s “looker” platform helps predict hospital readmission rates
A beta app voice assistant launched for people with speech impairments which also contributes to research to make speech recognition more inclusive
⌚️Fitbit’s clinical trial ft 455k participants using its pulse-tracking algorithm for atrial fibrillation showed some success in spotting the hidden signs - demonstrating wearables potential as front line screening tools for health
💵 Ribbon Health, an API layer for integrated data bagged $43.5USD from some of the greats
🐁 Paralysed mice walk again after gel with cell and nerve regeneration is injected into spinal cords
😈 Fun Fact 😈
Your favourite over the counter pain killer could be making you a daredevil. Panadol has been shown to increase risky behaviour by making people feel less negative emotion when considering risky activities according to a study published in 2020
Startup Stuff 🚀
👨🏻⚖️ Looking to get the Gov as a customer?
CiVic, LaunchVics program to help startups and scaleups and the gov get together and create innovation magic has undergone a revamp
🧬 Developing a Biomedical Innovation?
CUREator is the first national biotechnology incubator run by Brandon Capital ft. grants for preclinical medical research, medical innovation projects, and clinical-stage novel therapeutics
🧪 Interested in SynBio Solutions?
Join next years Australasian Synthetic Biology Challenge as a participant or supervisor
♿️ Got an early-stage startup creating tech to positively impact life for people with disabilities?
Check out the Remarkable Accelerator ft. fab mentors, $75k funding and fundamentals to get you going and growing
🎉 Keen to create the best experience for your team and help your startup succeed?
Folklore’s new Program - People Chapter is a community-driven course for professionals who can set startups up for success through people & culture, from the ground up
💰 Raising and want guidance from experienced experts?
The Luna legends have a 2-hour in-depth workshop on Thurs Dec 10th “Building Your Ideal Investment Strategy”
Use LUNACOMMUNITY at checkout for 50% off🤝 Looking for a Co-founder?
StartupVic’s first networking event of 2022 is an IRL Founder Connect to help you meet fab people and find your future biz soul mates
🦌 Antler is on the lookout for its 6th cohort of Aussie founders…
If you’re keen to scratch that entrepreneurial itch, solve a problem, learn lots and meet heaps of legends - take a look
👩🏻 Woman leader in digital health looking to learn from the best?
AIDH is launching a national leadership program for Women in Digital Health in partnership with Telstra Health, Alcidion, EY and Coviu ft. fab people and retreats
Events💥
7th-8th Dec: Cicada MedLab Commercialisation 101 (Canberra)
Wed 8th Dec: MedTechVic futuremap workshops
Wed 8th Dec: SBE by Springboard Enterprises 2021 Life Science Dolphin Tank
8th-9th Dec: ANDHealth Digital Health Summit
Thu 9th Dec: BioForum: THe Rise of Ransomware in Healthtech
13th-14th Dec: Cicada MedLab: Commercialisation 101 (Melbourne)
Wed 15th Dec: MedTechVic futuremap workshops
The Digital Health Festival is back baby and IRL in Melbourne in June 2022
Consumable Content 💎
🎙 Funny Business #111: Enjoying the Hunt | Dr Tom Kelly of Oscer
Theres been a lot of hype and questions about Oscer after being backed by Blackbird earlier this year - so what better way to learn the epic deets through this excellent collaboration
📖 What should you be getting paid at a startup? Think & Grow and KPMG’s 2021/2022 Australian Startup Salary Guide has got you covered
💻 Social networks and open source as a middleman for data? Seems too good to be true. But it’s happening and scholars reckon has the power to address the imbalance between data producers and corps that profit from our data… Read Radical Proposal: Data Cooperatives Could Give Us More Power Over Our Data
❌ Medicine isn’t as black and white as it seems with racism and gender issues embedded deep with most studies and treatment designs - This article dives into where the biases may lie
♾ The metaverse and web3s potential applications for health are pretty darn awesome. Check out this piece by my professional crush on peer review journals and how DAOs might help
Ace. You know the drill. Got something to add or want to say g’day?
Hit reply or shoot me a note at emily@whatthehealth.io 💌
Catch you later, alligators
👋 Emily
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