Today on Health in 2 Point 00, Jess can’t figure out what’s going on with health tech investors. Episode 156 feels like rummaging through a garage sale… First up is mirrors, mirrors, mirrors, with a total of $225 million invested: Tonal gets $110 million, Tempo gets $60 million, and Fiture gets $65 million. Next up is socks; Siren, which makes socks, added $9 million to their B round, which already has $11 million. Our next category is doctors, aka startups from Europe with “doctor” in the name: DrDoctor gets £3 million in an A, HomeDoctor scored €3.7 million, and Your.MD gets $30 million. Finally, we have raccoons! Raccoon.World closes a $900 million seed round to provide physiotherapy in a video game platform. —Matthew Holt
#Healthin2Point00, Episode 155 | Is UnitedHealth Group taking over the world?
Today on Health in 2 Point 00, Jess and I discuss UnitedHealth Group acquiring DivvyDose for $300 million, which is a knock off of PillPack. Is there anything left for them to buy? We cover many more deals in Episode 155—Noyo raises $12 million in a series A, helping health plans exchange data, Medigate raises $30 million working on cybersecurity for connected devices in hospitals, OnCall raises $6 million helping health systems launch their own virtual care platforms, RapidAI raises $25 million to improve MRI and CT quality using AI to layer those images, and Medefer raises £10 million offering telehealth and referrals to patients within the NHS. —Matthew Holt
Health in 2 Point 00, Episode 153 | GoodRx’s massive IPO, Olive, Bright Health & more
Today on Health in 2 Point 00, Jess is in Jacksonville hanging out with Jackson the dog and trying to replace me with @barkyboy. On Episode 153, we cover the biggest IPO we’ve seen yet—GoodRx—with a valuation of $18 billion, which is more than Teladoc, Livongo, and even Cardinal Health. In other news, Olive gets $106 million bringing their total to $220 million; Olive is a back office automation system using AI for hospitals and this round is practically financed by royalty. Bright Health gets $500 million for their health plan; they’ve raised about $1.5 billion and are planning to expand into more markets. Finally Osso VR raised $14 million in a series A, helping surgeons practice performing surgeries through their VR platform. —Matthew Holt
THCB Gang Episode 26, 9/24
Episode 26 of “The THCB Gang” was live-streamed on Thursday, September 24th! Watch it below!
Joining Matthew Holt (@boltyboy) were some of our regulars: health futurist Ian Morrison (@seccurve), patient advocate Grace Cordovano (@GraceCordovano), patient & entrepreneur Robin Farmanfarmaian (@Robinff3), health care consultant Daniel O’Neill (@dp_oneill), and patient safety expert Michael Millenson (@MLMillenson). The conversation revolved around the dismantling of the ACA, conservatives causing chaos in the government, the dismissal of pre-existing conditions, and the state of women’s health rights after the passing of RBG. It was both an emotional & impactful conversation.
If you’d rather listen to the episode, the audio is preserved as a weekly podcast available on our iTunes & Spotify channels — Zoya Khan
Health in 2 Point 00, Episode 152 | 2 IPOs, At-Home Care, & Youtube for Employees?
With 2 IPOs this week, On Episode 152 of Health in 2 Point 00, Jess asks me about Amwell’s IPO with a market cap at $5B for its telehealth solutions, Outset Medical’s IPO with a market cap of $1.5B for its kidney dialysis technology, Ready raising $54M for its care at- home platform, Lifespeak getting $42M for its “YouTube” like platform for employee mental health and wellness training program. – Matthew Holt
THCB’s Bookclub, September 2020 – NEO.LIFE
By JESSICA DAMASSA & MATTHEW HOLT
The THCB Book Club is a discussion with leading health care authors, which will be released on the third Wednesday of every month.
This month we hosted Jane Metcalfe (Founder of NEO.LIFE) to talk about her 2020 book NEO.LIFE. You can get a copy of it here!
NEO.LIFE is a very unusual book. It’s over 25 very short chapters (ranging from 1 page to 78) which include interviews, concepts, art, science, science fiction, and one short story. All from different authors or groups of authors that are all edited into place by Jane Metcalfe and Brian Bergstein.
The topic is the future of humans! And the loose focus is on biotech, human engineering, and well watch along and get a copy!
You can see the video below (and the podcast version will be in our iTunes & Spotify channels very soon).
In October the THCB BookClub will feature Mike Magee’s book, Code Blue.
Health in 2 Point 00, Episode 150 | Sesquicentennial anniversary edition!
It’s Health in 2 Point 00’s 150th Episode or Sesquicentennial anniversary! On this episode, we have the return of Softbank money—$100M goes to Biofourmis platform for AI & Clinical Trials. Next, Amwell prices their IPO at $14-16 a share, and Grand Rounds raises $175 million led by the Carlyle Group. Finally, we have real foul play to report – former Zocdoc CEO Cyrus Massoumi filed a lawsuit accusing his fellow cofounders and CFO of foul play, so Jess asks me to dish the dirty details. —Matthew Holt
THCB Gang Episode 24!
Episode 24 of “The THCB Gang” was live-streamed on Thursday, September 10th! Watch it below!
Joining Matthew Holt (@boltyboy) were some of our regulars: WTF Health Host Jessica DaMassa (@jessdamassa), patient & entrepreneur Robin Farmanfarmaian (@Robinff3), writer Kim Bellard (@kimbbellard), policy & tech expert Vince Kuraitis (@VinceKuraitis), and guest Mike Magee, a medical historian & health economist (@drmikemagee). The conversation was incredibly wide-ranging and one of the best we’ve had in a while–not the least because Mike Magee gave us a great base with how our non -health system somehow did actually act as a cohesive force in society before tech, then COVID19 broke it up!
If you’d rather listen to the episode, the audio is preserved as a weekly podcast available on our iTunes & Spotify channels — Zoya Khan
Health in 2 Point 00, Episode 148 | A colonoscopy story (& other health tech news)
Today on Health in 2 Point 00, Jess might be a little wary of my colonoscopy story, but it reveals just how well insurance companies communicate. In this episode, Jess and I cover GoodRx filing an S1 to go public, Trellus Health raising $5 million in seed funding for its platform for inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) and other chronic conditions, Klara Health raising $15 million for patient engagement, and Castor raising $12 million for its clinical trial platform. —Matthew Holt
Health in 2 Point 00, Episode 147 | The Most Confusing Episode So Far
With 3 consecutive days of $100M in funding, here is the most confusing (or rather the most confused we have been) Episode 147 of Health in 2 Point 00. Jess asks me about Verily partnering with Swiss Re to get into the stop-loss insurance game, Prescryptive Health raising a $26M Series A for their maybe GoodRx-like or PBM platform, Sonde Health acquiring NeuroLex for its vocal biomarkers platform, Aetion reopening their Series B and raising another $19M to the $36M they have already raised, and Otsuka after investing millions of dollars in Proteus, deciding to buy the rest of it with $15M, but we don’t know why any of these deals happened –Matthew Holt
