December 3, 2024

Digital Health 50

Hi there, 

Some spicy tech drama below featuring Elon, Marc Andreessen, and German bureaucracy. 🌶

But first, our 6th annual list of the most promising private digital health companies is out. 

Yup — the Digital Health 50 is live.

The winners — picked from a pool of 10,000+ — are working on drug discovery, diagnostics & imaging, clinical intelligence, and more. 

You can see our methodology and the full Digital Health 50 here.

Today, we’ll break down the list and what these companies tell us about 4 key healthcare shifts we’re tracking.

1) AI takes center stage in healthcare

36 of the 50 companies on the list are building AI products. 

That includes health insurance claim copilots (Alaffia Health) and specialized healthcare LLMs (Hippocratic AI). 

2) Specialized virtual care

The number of virtual and hybrid care companies jumped from 5 in 2023 to 11 in this year's cohort.

This increase signals a shift from one-size-fits-all telemedicine to condition-specific virtual care models. 

Specialized platforms on the list include Resilience in cancer care and Oshi Health in digestive healthcare. 

This health insurer we spoke with selected Oshi Health as a partner for digestive orders based on its differentiated approach:

3) Diagnostic innovations dominate

Diagnostics & imaging is tied for the most crowded category this year (it was the leading category on last year’s list as well). 

Companies are developing tools across imaging (Airs Medical), pathology (Proscia), and non-invasive diagnostics (Alimetry). 

The key takeaway: next-gen diagnostics are making testing more accessible and non-invasive while prioritizing early detection.

4) Workflow efficiency is a key priority heading into 2025

Staffing shortages are a driving force here as healthcare orgs look to shift provider time from paperwork to patient care. 

19 companies on the list are streamlining administrative and clinical tasks, from medical document processing (Tennr) to ambient documentation (Abridge).

Abridge is in the top 1% of startups we track based on its CB Insights Mosaic health score. 

Get the full list. 

TLDR — Tech loves drama, right?

Here's a roundup of recent tech drama:

• Debanked: Marc Andreessen of a16z claimed roughly 30 crypto founders were “debanked” — accounts closed, banking access blocked — under the Biden administration during an interview with Joe Rogan. His comments set off a flood of commentary on social media over the weekend, including from Coinbase’s Brian Armstrong.
  
  
• Here’s the intel: Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger is “retiring” after Intel faced challenges in keeping pace with Nvidia in the AI chip market. Following Gelsinger’s announcement of his resignation Monday morning, Intel shares rose 3% but dipped 4% by market close.
  
  
• X marks the ownership: Elon Musk’s X Corp. filed a claim asserting ownership of all registered user accounts, citing its terms of service. While X doesn’t own user content, it retains broad control over accounts. The move aims to block The Onion’s bid to buy Alex Jones’ Infowars, with Musk arguing X’s rights extend to accounts tied to the sale.
  
  
• Banned down under: Australia approved legislation that would ban social media for children under 16, starting November 2025. The law will require social media platforms to have age verification processes in place. 
  
  
• Red tape: Investor Nathan Benaich called out German bureaucracy on X, posting about a 12-hour notary session where Series A docs were read aloud in person. By law, notaries in Germany must read the entire document out loud before the parties sign. Think this is bad? In France, they read them out loud AND also have someone communicate the docs via sign language. But yes — Europe has work-life balance.

Source: X

I love you.

Anand

@asanwal 

Co-Founder & Exec Chair

P.S. Our analysts went behind the scenes of the Digital Health 50 earlier today. Get the full briefing here.

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