Skip to main content
https://www.highperformancecpmgate.com/rgeesizw1?key=a9d7b2ab045c91688419e8e18a006621

Funding for mental-health focused startups rises in 2020

Turning away from the public markets, IPOs, SPACs and Palantir for a moment, would you like to talk about startups again? I would.

This morning, I pored over venture capital funding patterns for wellness-focused startups. Broadly, according to a new report, these startups raised less money in the first half of 2020 than they did in the first two quarters of 2019. Deal volume fell from nearly 600 in H1 2019 to just under 500 in H1 2020, and dollars invested slipped from $6.1 billion to $4.6 billion in the same timeframe.

But, if we peer a bit deeper and look at the subcategories of wellness startups, interesting hotspots become clear.

The Exchange explores startups, markets and money. You can read it every morning on Extra Crunch, or get The Exchange newsletter every Saturday.

Inside the sub-categories of wellness startups that CB Insights dug through while compiling the dataset, some, like fitness tech and sleep tech, saw fewer deals and dollars than they did in the first half of 2019. But one particular varietal is doing very well this year: mental-health focused companies.

The strong venture results that these startups have recorded in 2020 are not entirely due to a pandemic, a recession and political unrest that’s causing more anguish than usual, though I’d be surprised if those factors didn’t provide a tailwind of sorts.

Stepping back a few quarters, there’s a bit more to the business side of mental-health startups that I want to unpack.

This morning, let’s remind ourselves about how startups like Calm and Headspace proved that their market was large and lucrative, review the venture capital data and see if the pattern of strong investment in the space is continuing in the current quarter.

We should see another unicorn or two out of the group, we reckon, before the eventual tech downturn. So let’s work to understand where the category is today.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Uber co-founder Garrett Camp steps back from board director role

Uber co-founder Garrett Camp is relinquishing his role as a board director and switching to board observer — where he says he’ll focus on product strategy for the ride hailing giant. Camp made the announcement in a short Medium post in which he writes of his decade at Uber: “I’ve learned a lot, and realized that I’m most helpful when focused on product strategy & design, and this is where I’d like to focus going forward.” “I will continue to work with Dara [Khosrowshahi, Uber CEO] and the product and technology leadership teams to brainstorm new ideas, iterate on plans and designs, and continue to innovate at scale,” he adds. “We have a strong and diverse team in place, and I’m confident everyone will navigate well during these turbulent times.” The Canadian billionaire entrepreneur signs off by saying he’s looking forward to helping Uber “brainstorm the next big idea”. Camp hasn’t been short of ideas over his career in tech. He’s the co-founder of the web 2.0 recommendatio
Post a Comment
Read more

Drone crash near kids leads Swiss Post and Matternet to suspend autonomous deliveries

A serious crash by a delivery drone in Switzerland have grounded the fleet and put a partnership on ice. Within a stone’s throw of a school, the incident raised grim possibilities for the possibilities of catastrophic failure of payload-bearing autonomous aerial vehicles. The drones were operated by Matternet as part of a partnership with the Swiss Post (i.e. the postal service), which was using the craft to dispatch lab samples from one medical center for priority cases. As far as potential applications of drone delivery, it’s a home run — but twice now the craft have crashed, first with a soft landing and the second time a very hard one. The first incident, in January, was the result of a GPS hardware error; the drone entered a planned failback state and deployed its emergency parachute, falling slowly to the ground. Measures were taken to improve the GPS systems. The second failure in May, however, led to the drone attempting to deploy its parachute again, only to sever the line
Post a Comment
Read more

How the world’s largest cannabis dispensary avoids social media restrictions

Planet 13 is the world’s largest cannabis dispensary. Located in Las Vegas, blocks off the Strip, the facility is the size of a small Walmart. By design, it’s hard to miss. Planet 13 is upending the dispensary model. It’s big, loud and visitors are encouraged to photograph everything. As part of the cannabis industry, Planet 13 is heavily restricted on the type of content it can publish on Instagram, Facebook and other social media platforms. It’s not allowed to post pictures of buds or vapes on some sites. It can’t talk about pricing or product selection on others.   View this post on Instagram   A post shared by Morgan Celeste SF Blogger (@bayareabeautyblogger) on Jan 25, 2020 at 7:54pm PST Instead, Planet 13 encourages its thousands of visitors to take photos and videos. Starting with the entrance, the facility is full of surprises tailored for the ‘gram. As a business, Planet 13’s social media content is heavily restricted and monito
3 comments
Read more