Dive Brief:
- Health IT companies picked up $858 billion in VC funding across 163 deals during the first quarter of 2014, according to a new Mercom Capital Group report, Healthcare IT News reports. That's up 154% from the last quarter of 2013.
- Clinically-focused deals executed during Q1 2014 reached $460 million and include eight practice management deals, seven business intelligence/analytics deals and two health information exchange deals.
- On the consumer side, which raised $398 million, companies struck 61 mobile health deals, 14 telehealth deals and six deals in scheduling, rating and shopping companies.
Dive Insight:
It's remarkable to see that consumer health tech deals are on a par with the deals being struck in the clinical/technical end of the business. Consumer tech companies, especially those in the mobile health area, are growing at a rapid rate, and as consumers come to rely on mobile and telehealth products, these numbers are likely to be much larger soon.