I
recently attended the HealthTech 2.0
conference hosted by Women of Wearables Global. At this event, I heard a
fascinating panel discussion about investing in healthtech. The
digital health market
is expected to reach $536
billion by
2025 and 2020 will be the largest funding year ever for the sector. Led by Jenny Thomas, Director of DigitalHealth.London, the panel discussed many
interesting questions, such as “Is there any untapped potential in this
industry” and “What’s the next big thing to invest in in the healthcare
industry?”
The
panel consisted of Amina Sugimoto, DrPH, founder and CEO of fermata Inc., Neha Tanna, Investment
Partner at Joyance Partners, Jonathan Machado,
Investment Director at Samsung NEXT and Pauliina Martikainen,
Investment Director at Maki.vc.
When
tracking the progress and rise of healthtech and femtech there was the view
that Covid-19 was the main reason technology
in healthcare has
boomed, AI nursing means patients can be managed from home remotely. If
done well, they will only need to see a doctor every six months. Covid-19 has
meant there is a real need for this sort of technology.
When
looking to the future, the panellists agreed that whether virtual care
and healthtech remains
popular will vary from country to country. Amina believes Japan will return to
pre-pandemic systems whilst Pauliina believed there is no reason this industry
will stop now the wheels have begun turning. Neha pointed out that healthtech is now a
very saturated market and companies will have to stand out. Jonathan echoed
this, stating that investors will have to be very careful in deciphering which
companies’ growth is real and sustained rather than temporarily inflated by
Covid-19.
As an investor, this panel was exciting to hear from and echoed
many of my beliefs. I am a proud investor in healthtech
but particularly in the femtech sector with Elvie.
Elvie is a London-based company founded by Tania Boler. Frustrated to find
that women’s health has been given
inadequate attention in both the research and technological fields, Boler
set out to make remedying this her priority and to “get women talking about health issues more”. She has achieved this goal
through two of Elvie’s key products: the Pump
and Trainer. The former is for breastfeeding, the latter is for the pelvic
floor.
Whilst the femtech market is
flourishing, there is still a long way to go in terms of research and
understanding of women’s healthcare. I hope to continue
watching the sector closely and see what novel ideas and developments come to
fruition.
