Digital health (2025)

Europe’s digital health sector was on life support in 2023 but 2024 might’ve been the year the patient turned the corner. Last year’s four biggest digital health equity raises — period tracking app Flo’s $200m, insurtech Alan’s $173m, surgery platform Caresyntax’s $80m and smart ring maker Oura’s $200m series D funding round — all easily cleared 2023’s largest, digi-physical health platform Patient21’s €70m Series C.

So far this year, Daniel Ek-backed body scanning startup Neko Health’s $260m Series B is the biggest digi-health raise — and it will take some beating. Arguably just as eye-catching is the money pulled in by London’s Level Zero Health — this digital/medical device startup is aiming to break new ground by developing a wearable device for continuous hormone monitoring. It closed a $6.9m pre-seed funding, which is a record for a female-led early-round company that was widely celebrated online (scroll down for our interview with European VC Redalpine, which led the round).

These deals make it a decent start this year in a sector which is yet to produce many big returns for investors. Digital health startups struggle to establish a competitive advantage in large part because there are so many of them: in 2020, new health apps were released at an average rate of 250 a day, according to the FT. Globally, the field attracted over $100bn of investment in the three years to 2022, according to CB Insights.

What trends will dominate this year? Three, primarily, are worth following. Firstly, if a startup is developing AI-backed health services, it can expect to book VC meetings. Generative AI chatbots are already playing a role in health: a Deloitte survey this year found that 48% of respondents asked chatbots such as ChatGPT, Gemini, Copilot or Claude health-focused questions. Swedish unicorn Kry, which operates both digital and physical care facilities, says it’s delaying profitability to plough money into GenAI products, which it hopes to release in the second half of 2025. Several other European startups are also working on GenAI healthcare tools — French startup Nabla secured a $24m Series B round last year to expand its automated note-taking tool for medical professionals. Corti, a Danish AI note-taking and advisory platform for doctors, raised a $60m Series B in 2023.

Secondly, investors are increasingly keen on preventative care tools, be it apps or devices that track sleep, fitness or reproductive health (or Neko Health-like body scanners). Wearable health monitoring devices have seen rising takeup, as more turn to smart watches, jewellery and apps to track their vitals (Finland’s Oura has been the longtime leader in smart rings).

Finally, expect to see more attention on women’s healthcare, which has previously suffered from research blindspots and years of under-investment. Funding for startups specifically targeting female healthcare grew 5% between 2022 and 2023, according to an analysis by Deloitte of PitchBook data. London-based Flo, which became a unicorn last year, will likely inspire more founders and investors to tap into the growing market for menopause and perimenopause therapeutics. The sector has grown in recent years as discussions about menopause have become more mainstream.