An Inside Look at Enterprise Digital Innovation: Highlights from the Rock Health Spring 2021 Member Retreat

We recently had the privilege of hosting over two dozen digital health executives from major healthcare organizations across the world for our virtual Spring Member Retreat. While representing a diverse set of organizations (provider, payer, biopharma, retail, tech) and roles (innovation, corp dev, venture), each retreat attendee shared one important characteristic—a passion for driving digital innovation within their organization. Rock Health Member Retreats are designed to be interactive, candid conversations that foster community building and generate ideas for enterprise digital innovation initiatives. And the timing of the retreat couldn’t have been any better.

Ro acquires Modern Fertility: Segment-specific M&A another front in the platform wars

Ro acquiring Modern Fertility represents the opportunity created when segment-specific services for a given population or need—in this case fertility—combine with wide-population focused virtual care platforms. This deal won’t be the last transaction where telehealth and navigation platforms snap up startups focused on segment-specific verticals.

100+ Digital Health CEOs on Navigating Growth, Change, And Challenges

Each year, Rock Health brings together more than 100 digital health CEOs for candid, closed-door conversations about how to build a successful company in digital health. For the 2021 Digital Health CEO Summit, co-hosted with Venture Lab at the University of Pennsylvania, we were joined by a diverse group of CEOs whose organizations’ growth stages ranged from pre-seed all the way through successful exits. Discussions focused on topics like crafting pitches, going to market, inclusive hiring practices, and navigating times of uncertainty. In this intimate setting, CEOs shared honest and valuable insights about their experiences in transforming healthcare.

Building a Coherent Go-To-Market Strategy for Digital Health Solutions: A Q&A with ZS Associates’ Vijesh Unnikrishnan and Dan MacLeod

Digital health has been a promising, growing space over the past decade. And with the pandemic putting new demands on the healthcare system, demand for digitally-enabled care and services spiked overnight. Even as a light has emerged at the end of the pandemic tunnel, momentum toward digital health shows no signs of slowing down. Over $14B was invested across 2020 in private US digital health companies, a number likely to be dwarfed by 2021 investment, with $6.7B already put to work in Q1 2021. With plenty of funding in tow, more companies are on their way to advancing the promise of digital transformation and achieving meaningful scale.

The next Nuance to the platform wars

Yesterday, Microsoft announced it was acquiring Nuance Communications for $16B, the largest digital health acquisition since Teladongo’s starter pistol to the virtual platform wars was fired off last year. Check out our take on why big tech companies are so focused on physician workflow solutions—and what this means for their healthcare strategies going forward.

Glitter or gold? What the SPAC trend means for digital health

2021 opened with a whirlwind of SPAC-triggered public exit activity in digital health. In this post, we share insights and analysis on how digital health’s SPAC boom will impact four different stakeholder groups, as well as implications for the entire ecosystem.

Q1 2021 funding report: Digital health is all grown up

Q1 2021 closed with $6.7B in US digital health funding, the most-funded quarter to date. Average deal size ballooned to $45.9M (up from $31.7M in 2020), and SPACs continued to offer a new path to liquidity, with 10 announced or closed SPAC deals. With growing deal sizes, a faster funding pace, and new exit pathways, we’re in a period of heightened opportunity.

How to advance healthcare quality though digital health

Where does healthcare quality show up in the virtual healthcare context, and how should innovators, investors, and healthcare providers approach questions about quality in this paradigm? For a clinician's point of view, we turned to Simon Mathews, Chief Medical Officer of Rock Health portfolio company Vivante Health, to share a perspective on how digital health can play a role in advancing care quality across four dimensions.

A defining moment for digital behavioral health: Four market trends

2020 was the biggest year yet for the digital behavioral health market with companies raking in a record $2.4B in venture funding. This piece explores four key trends that currently define this market: (1) investors pouring more money into later-stage deals, (2) a burgeoning market for generalist and specialist approaches, (3) consolidation for clinical expansions and digital capabilities, and (4) investment opportunities for substance use disorder and developmental disorder solutions.

Welcoming Katie Drasser as the CEO of Rock Health’s Nonprofit!

Given the growth over the past few years of both Rock Health’s for-profit and our 501(c)(3), we are so excited to announce that Katie Drasser is taking over as the independent CEO to lead Rock Health's nonprofit!

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