Top 10 Digital Health IPOs in the U.S. Over the Past Five Years: Business Models and Product Innovations
NantHealth
Cloud-based Intelligent Clinical Operating System Provider
Teladoc
Telemedicine Service Provider
Castlight Health
Personalized Healthcare Trading Platform
iRhythm
Innovative Diagnostic Monitoring Solutions Technology Provider
Digital healthcare is one of the most exciting technological fields, with advancements that not only impact the lives of millions but also influence the economy of society as a whole.
Over the past five years, funding for U.S. digital health companies has increased significantly. In 2012 alone, $1.5 billion was invested in 132 digital health companies. Over the past three years, this figure has grown to over $4 billion, with $4.2 billion invested in digital health companies in 2016, completing 296 financing transactions.
Although the current growth rate has slowed, with only three digital health companies raising $250 million in public funding in 2016, a significant number of digital health companies have gone public since 2012.VCBeat (WeChat ID: vcbeat)A Review of the Top 10 Publicly Traded Digital Health Companies in the U.S. Over the Past Five Years: What Do They Do?
Date of Establishment:2002
Launch Date:2015
Company Location:Purchase, New York, USA
Company Size:501-1,000 employees
Founder:Byron Brooks、Michael Gorton
Teladoc, founded in 2002, is the first and largest telehealth company in the United States. It is also the world’s first publicly listed online medical consultation company, having been listed on the New York Stock Exchange in 2015 under the ticker symbol TDOC.
As a benchmark for internet healthcare in the United States and a model for many domestic internet healthcare companies, Teladoc provides users with 24/7 online consultation services. Through the Teladoc platform, users can seek medical advice from doctors anytime and anywhere via text, video, and phone calls. This telemedicine model addresses the shortage of physicians, optimizes the allocation of medical resources, alleviates the pressure on outpatient clinics, increases physicians' income, and reduces healthcare costs.
In 2015, Teladoc finally went public in the United States. At the time of its IPO, Teladoc already had more than 1,100 board-certified physicians and healthcare experts, handling a large volume of medical cases daily. Statistics show that in 2014 alone, nearly 300,000 members received telemedicine services from Teladoc within one hour, representing a year-over-year increase of 135%, with a total of 500,000 telemedicine consultations completed that year.
Current Price:$36
Total Market Cap:$2.007 billion
Date of Establishment:2011
Launch Date:2015
Company Location:Arlington, Virginia, USA
Company Size:501-1,000 employees
Founder:Frank Williams、Seth Blackley、Tom Peterson
Evolent Health is an organization that provides population health management services, integrating technology, tools, and field resources to support healthcare systems in implementing healthcare reform.
The company’s core business consists of software sales and consulting services, aiming to help healthcare systems establish proprietary value-based care models. Its clients include healthcare systems, health insurance providers, Independent Practice Associations (IPAs), Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs), and children’s hospitals.
The company employs its own physicians and clinical experts, leveraging advanced data analytics to better assess patients' disease risks. Furthermore, it assigns health management consultants to partner hospitals, assisting healthcare institutions in establishing their own health insurance plans or facilitating collaborations between hospitals and commercial insurance companies. This approach enhances the quality of care provided by healthcare institutions and reduces medical costs through effective disease risk control.
On June 5, 2015, Evolent Health, founded just four years prior, listed on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol EVH, raising $195 million by selling 11,500,000 shares at $17 per share.
Current Price:$26.2
Total Market Cap:$1.864 billion
Date of Establishment:2006
Launch Date:2016
Company Location:San Francisco, California, USA
Company Size:101-250 employees
Founder:Uday Kumar
iRhythm is a U.S. medical technology company founded in 2006, primarily providing affordable and innovative diagnostic monitoring solutions to facilitate early diagnosis and treatment of arrhythmias. Its ultimate goal is to improve patient health outcomes and reduce unnecessary healthcare expenditures.
iRhythm’s flagship product is the Zio® Patch, a wearable device designed for the rapid detection of arrhythmias. Integrating wearable sensing, cloud-based data, and machine learning, it is lightweight, compact, and highly accurate, offering superior usability compared to Holter monitors. The Zio® Patch can provide continuous monitoring for up to 14 days, capturing over 20,000 minutes of diagnostic data, and can be worn during sleep, physical activity, and even while showering.
iRhythm went public on the Nasdaq in October 2016, raising $120 million in pre-IPO financing and $107 million in its IPO. Its stock price has continued to rise, bringing its market capitalization to $891 million. The company reported revenue of $64 million in 2016, with a net loss exceeding $20 million, while achieving an annual revenue growth rate of over 60%.
Current Price:$40.38
Total Market Capitalization:$891 million
Date of Establishment:2000
Launch Date:2012
Company Location:San Jose, California, USA
Company Size:501-1,000 employees
Founder:Robert Shostak
Vocera is a U.S.-based provider of healthcare communication systems. Founded in 2000 and headquartered in San Jose, California, the company maintains offices in Tennessee, Canada, and the United Kingdom. Vocera primarily offers comprehensive mobile communication solutions—including voice communication solutions, secure messaging applications, and care transition solutions—to address significant communication challenges faced by hospitals today, thereby enhancing hospital efficiency and patient satisfaction.
Vocera’s product portfolio includes voice communication, clinical documentation, patient management, collaboration platforms, alert systems, and wearable devices. Vocera’s solutions have received exclusive endorsement from the American Hospital Association and are deployed in more than 1,400 hospitals and healthcare institutions worldwide.
The company raised $74.4 million in its initial public offering on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol “VCRA” on March 28, 2012, selling a total of 5,850,000 shares at $16 per share, for a gross offering amount of $93.6 million.
Current Price:$27.24
Total Market Capitalization:$783 million
Establishment Date:2003
Listing Date:2014
Company Location:Menlo Park, California, USA
Company Size:251-500 employees
Founder:Don Eaton、
Intersect ENT is a developer of otolaryngology medical devices. Originally named Sinexus and founded in 2003, the company primarily provides advanced treatment solutions for otolaryngologists to ensure better patient care.
The company has developed sinus drug delivery technology, featuring the PROPEL bioabsorbable implant for patients with chronic rhinosinusitis undergoing sinus surgery. This implant helps prevent postoperative obstruction of the ethmoid sinuses, enabling patients to recover quickly after surgery.
On July 24, 2014, Intersect ENT Inc. listed on the NASDAQ Stock Market under the ticker symbol XENT, raising $55 million by selling 5,000,000 shares at a price of $11 per share.
Current Price:$27.25
Total Market Capitalization:$777 million
Date of Establishment:2008
Listing Date:2014
Company Location:San Francisco, California, USA
Company Size:251-500 employees
Founder:Giovanni Colella、John Doyle
Castlight Health is a healthcare information company based in San Francisco, USA. Founded in 2008, it primarily offers a personalized healthcare transaction platform that helps users better understand the pricing of medical services and the quality of healthcare providers, ultimately achieving transparency in healthcare services. Castlight Health positions itself as a healthcare price-comparison company, working with self-insured employers to make health insurance more transparent and help insured users save money. This is akin to “shopping around” in the healthcare services industry.
On June 6, 2017, Castlight Health partnered with the digital health company Jiff to launch its latest product, Casting Complete, a comprehensive health benefits platform. As a “one-stop service platform” for health benefits resources, Casting Complete significantly reduces the workload of corporate HR teams while improving employee satisfaction with their company’s health benefits. Consequently, Castlight Health has become one of the most favored companies among HR professionals.
Castlight Health went public on the New York Stock Exchange on March 14, 2014, under the ticker symbol CSLT. It offered a total of 11,100,000 shares at $16 per share, raising $177.6 million. Currently, Castlight serves more than 240 corporate clients, including over 70 Fortune 500 companies such as Walmart, Honeywell, NantHealth, Inc., and Allegis Group.
Current Price:$4.35
Total Market Cap:$589 million
Date of Establishment:2007
Launch Date:2016
Company Location:Culver City, California, USA
Company Size:251-500
Founder:Patrick Soon-Shiong (Chinese-American physician Chan Sung-hsiung)
NantHealth is a provider of cloud-based intelligent clinical operating systems. Founded in 2007, the company aims to integrate science and technology through a comprehensive clinical platform, enabling physicians, patients, payers, and researchers to transcend the barriers of traditional healthcare systems.
The company’s core product is a comprehensive, AI-driven clinical learning system called CLINICS, which integrates the company’s proprietary software, middleware, and hardware infrastructure to collect and analyze billions of clinical data points, thereby continuously optimizing clinical pathways and decision-making algorithms. In simple terms, this enables insurers to monitor physicians’ prescribing patterns, pharmaceutical companies to accelerate new drug development, and patients to access health education and better understand their own health conditions and diseases. Another powerful product from NantHealth is NantOS (Nant Operating System), which connects various diagnostic devices, electronic health record (EHR) systems, and diverse data sources, while the platform also offers leading-edge proteomic testing.
In September 2014, NantHealth was featured as the cover story in Forbes magazine. Prior to its initial public offering, the company raised $495 million from investors including Verizon Ventures, biotechnology giant Celgene, BlackBerry, the Kuwait Investment Authority, Blackstone, and U.S.-based electronic health record vendor Allscripts, among others.
On June 2, 2016, NantHealth raised funds through its initial public offering on the NASDAQ Stock Market under the ticker symbol “NH,” selling a total of 6,500,000 shares at a price of $14 per share.
Current Price:$4.58
Total Market Cap:$550 million
Date of Establishment:2002
Launch Date:2014
Company Location:New York City, USA
Company Size:501-1,000 employees
Founder:Benjamin Wolin 、Michael Keriakos
Everyday Health is a digital health media company that operates multiple websites producing health-related content, providing content and advertising services to consumers, healthcare professionals, and marketers. The company primarily adopts a multi-brand media strategy, owning 25 health websites, 26 mobile health applications, seven YouTube channels, and 31 social media platforms for content promotion. It has a total of 500,000 users in the healthcare industry, with nearly one-third of all physicians in the United States using Everyday Health’s products.
Through these websites, mobile platforms, health communities, and physician recommendations, Everyday Health empowers consumers to manage their daily health; enables healthcare professionals to stay abreast of patient conditions and make better decisions; and facilitates communication and engagement between healthcare marketers, payers, and providers with consumers.
The company was listed on the New York Stock Exchange on March 28, 2014, under the ticker symbol EVDY, raising $110 million by selling 7,150,000 shares at $14 per share. In November 2016, Everyday Health was acquired by Ziff Davis, a subsidiary of the internet communications services provider j2 Global, for $665 million.
Current Price:$10.5
Total Market Cap:$355 million
Date of Establishment:2006
Listing Date:2015
Company Location:Plymouth, Minnesota, USA
Company Size:51-100 Employees
Founder:Peter Keith、Tom Ressemann
Entellus Medical is a medical technology company specializing in chronic sinusitis, dedicated to designing minimally invasive treatment products for adult and pediatric patients with chronic and recurrent sinusitis, thereby providing high-quality devices and extensive expertise to the global ENT (ear, nose, and throat) market.
Entellus Medical’s three core products—the XprESS™ Multi-Sinus Dilation System, MiniFESS™ Surgical Instruments, and FocESS™ Imaging and Navigation Technology—enable ENT physicians to conveniently and comfortably perform various procedures in the office setting, thereby streamlining operating room (OR) treatments. Among these, the XprESS Multi-Sinus Dilation System provides ENT physicians with a tool for transnasal treatment of the frontal, sphenoid, or maxillary sinuses in either the physician’s office or the operating room.
The company conducted its initial public offering on the NASDAQ Stock Market on January 28, 2015, raising $78 million under the ticker symbol “ENTL” by selling 4,600,000 shares at a price of $17 per share.
Current Price:$15.64
Total Market Capitalization:$353 million
Establishment Date:2007
Launch Date:2015
Company Location:Redwood City, California, USA
Company Size:51-100 employees
Founder:John B. Simpson
Avinger is a medical device company dedicated to developing catheter-based technologies for the treatment of vascular diseases. The company’s primary focus is on medical devices for treating occlusive atherosclerosis. Its newly introduced technology, Lumivascular (intravascular imaging), integrates optical fibers into the tip of traditional devices to enable imaging and analysis of the intravascular environment. This assists physicians in more effectively managing plaque blockages while minimizing damage to the vessel wall.
The company designs, develops, and manufactures precision medical device technologies aimed at helping patients maintain optimal blood flow to their limbs. Avinger’s flagship products include the Wildcat and the Ocelot; the former is a catheter that assists physicians in treating peripheral artery disease, while the latter is a real-time intravascular imaging device.
The company raised $65 million in its initial public offering on the NASDAQ Stock Market under the ticker symbol AVGR on January 30, 2015. A total of 5,000,000 shares were sold at a price of $13 per share.
Current Price:$0.42
Total Market Capitalization:$8.97 million
Note: The market capitalizations of the above companies are based on the data as of the editorial deadline and are for reference only.
References:
【1】http://vator.tv/news/2017-05-30-the-top-10-digital-health-ipos-in-the-last-five-years
【2】https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/cslt?ltr=1
【3】https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/evolent-health#/entity
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