South America Digital Health Ecosystem 2022 Year End Report
Galen Growth is pleased to share with you our 2022 Year End insights and deep dive into the South America Digital Health Ecosystem. We focus our analysis on the ecosystem key trends, through the lens of:
- Key categories
- Disease areas
- Noteworthy partnerships
- Regulatory approvals
- Venture funding
HealthTech Alpha, a Galen Growth proprietary solution, powers this report!
Contents
- Digital Health Headlines
- Ecosystem Insights
- Investment Insights
- Cluster Focus
- Therapeutic Focus
- Noteworthy
- What’s Next?
Key Insights
- Digital Health has its feet back on the ground after the extraordinary 2-year pandemic period funding spree. In this year of geopolitical turmoil and looming economic recession, Digital Health is nevertheless proving resilient, with South America deploying funding that exceeds the pre-pandemic levels of 2019 by 6.3x.
- In South America, the Digital Health funding dried up by the end of the year, with no funding deals announced in the fourth quarter. South American key markets concluded the year with an annual venture funding value of $283M, a YoY deficit of 42% below 2021 and only 20 venture funding deals, ushering in a new phase for Digital Health, with less extravagance and higher expectations for proof points and ROI.
- More than 70% of the private and active South American Digital Health ventures were founded in Brazil. However, in 2022 53% of the venture funding was deployed to ventures that were first incorporated in Chile. The surge in funding was mainly attributable to the Mega Deal for Chilean Health InsurTech venture Betterfly.
- Health Management Solutions remains the largest Digital Health cluster in South America, with over 80 ventures spread across the key markets. Despite the 85% YOY decline in venture capital funding, Semantix, a Health Management Solution for hospitals and clinics was the only South American venture in Digital Health to go public in 2022 through a SPAC.
- Digital Health ventures in South America will find the path forward in 2023 to be more challenging, with declining venture valuations, but ventures have already shown resilience in 2022, and this new landscape will strengthen the pipeline of ventures, driving innovation and business model viability further to show the value of Digital Health tools for improving healthcare research and delivery.
