Jason Kuperberg

Omada Health, which went public three months ago, just released promising results: more than 60% of its members maintained weight loss after discontinuing GLP-1 therapy. I wrote down a few thoughts. 1️⃣ 𝐔𝐧𝐭𝐢𝐥 𝐫𝐞𝐜𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐥𝐲, 𝐇𝐞𝐚𝐥𝐭𝐡𝐓𝐞𝐜𝐡 𝐈𝐏𝐎𝐬 𝐰𝐞𝐫𝐞 𝐚 𝐛𝐥𝐨𝐨𝐝𝐛𝐚𝐭𝐡 Over 90% of HealthTech companies (including TechBio) that went public have significantly underperformed. Halle Tecco analyzed 23 digital health SPACs (around 40% of all HealthTech public listings went through SPACs). Her findings: ▪️30% declared bankruptcy ▪️26% were acquired at steep losses ▪️90% of those still trading have lost double-digit value since debut But now, it seems this dynamic may finally be shifting. 2️⃣ 𝐓𝐞𝐦𝐩𝐮𝐬, 𝐖𝐚𝐲𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐫, 𝐇𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐞, 𝐎𝐦𝐚𝐝𝐚 = 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐥 𝐮𝐧𝐢𝐜𝐨𝐫𝐧𝐬 As of September 9, 2025, their market capitalizations were: Tempus AI = $14B Waystar = $7B Hinge Health = $4.5B Omada Health = $1.4B For comparison: Philips, the leading MedTech, has a market cap of $23B. Tempus is going straight after Philips. 3️⃣ 𝐁𝐞𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐝𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐢𝐛𝐮𝐭𝐨𝐫𝐬 Last year, Hinge Health launched its Strategic Solutions Alliance, which now includes 13 partners whose solutions can be distributed directly to Hinge Health’s member base. This is a more generic pattern: once a HealthTech has gained a strong installed base through its point solution, it becomes a curated marketplace. 4️⃣ 𝐓𝐞𝐦𝐩𝐮𝐬 𝐢𝐬 𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐬𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐦𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐜𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐥 𝐜𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐢𝐧 𝐨𝐧𝐜𝐨𝐥𝐨𝐠𝐲 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐛𝐞𝐲𝐨𝐧𝐝 Tempus AI secured the first AI-only CPT reimbursement code in the US (October 2024). It also acquired Page AI, a leader in digital pathology. After oncology, Tempus aims to expand into cardiology, neurology, and psychiatry. 5️⃣ 𝐁𝐞𝐲𝐨𝐧𝐝 𝐈𝐏𝐎𝐬: 𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐨𝐧𝐠 𝐌&𝐀 𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐯𝐢𝐭𝐲, 𝐞𝐬𝐩𝐞𝐜𝐢𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐲 𝐢𝐧 𝐧𝐨𝐧-𝐜𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐥 HealthEdge, a CareOps player, was acquired by Bain Capital for $2.6B (May 2025) Arcadia, a #healthcare analytics company, was acquired by Nordic Capital for an undisclosed sum (June 2025) Iodine Software (AI-powered healthcare payments) was acquired by Waystar (July 2025) Some HealthTech companies are now mature enough for private equity, while winners like Waystar are consolidating the market. 6️⃣ 𝐄𝐮𝐫𝐨𝐩𝐞 = 𝟎 𝐈𝐏𝐎 While the US (and China) already count dozens of HealthTech #IPOs, Europe has had none. Doctolib could be the first next year… or perhaps Alan. --------- This analysis was made possible by the HealthTech Alpha platform from Galen Growth | Redefining Digital Health Intelligence. Join the Healthcare Business International conference in March 2026 in Paris for more M&A in Healthcare Innovation discussions! Follow HGM Advisory for daily reposts of the most relevant #HealthTech news.

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I’m thrilled to announce defy.vc’s investment in Birches Health as part of their $20M combined Seed and Series A funding round, alongside incredible partners like AlleyCorp, General Catalyst, Will Ventures, and others. As someone deeply passionate about backing companies that tackle important problems for our society, I couldn’t be more excited about what Birches is building—a national virtual clinic dedicated to treating gambling addiction and related behavioral disorders like gaming, sex, porn, and internet addictions. What excites me most is Birches’ innovative health assurance model: proactive, accessible, and affordable care that’s evidence-based and delivered right at home. With the explosion of legal sports betting—think nearly $1.5 billion wagered on this year’s Super Bowl alone—we’re staring down a looming public health emergency. Traditional options like hotlines or generic therapy fall short for this high-acuity issue, but Birches changes that by offering specialized therapy from trained clinicians, multimodal treatment, and peer support, all covered by major insurers like United Healthcare, Cigna, Aetna, and Blue Cross Blue Shield. It’s available in all 50 states, breaking down geographical and financial barriers that have left so many without help. The impact is already profound: 96% of patients report an improved quality of life, and 94% give Birches a 5/5 rating. By partnering with state governments, payors, and policymakers, Birches is pushing gambling addiction into the spotlight of behavioral health conversations, where it’s been neglected for too long—often leading to shame, worsened outcomes, and higher suicidality risks. This funding will supercharge their growth: expanding the provider network, boosting clinical excellence, scaling infrastructure, and deepening insurance and state partnerships to meet surging demand. Very excited to partner with Elliott Rapaport and the entire Birches team! See more about our POV in the blog post linked in the comments. #GamblingAddiction #BehavioralHealth #HealthTech #VentureCapital #Innovation

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At Foresite Capital, my team looks for companies where data, science, and leadership come together to create compounding advantage. We found that combination in Thyme Care, and yesterday returned for their Series D. The Thyme Care platform integrates clinical records, claims data, and patient-reported outcomes into a continuously learning system. These insights are being deployed daily to anticipate patient needs, optimize provider workflows, and guide value-based decisions at scale. The team at Thyme - including Robin Shah, a second-generation oncology entrepreneur and oncology insider; Dr. Bobby Green, M.D., a community oncologist and data-driven product builder; and Dr. Bradford Diephuis, a physician and policy architect who understands how to align incentives across the system - are deep operators who are also domain experts. The result is a model that we believe will improve outcomes while creating a richer, more connected data set with every patient interaction. We’re proud to continue partnering with Thyme Care. https://lnkd.in/gfyXm598

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Hello, Patient! Today Scale Venture Partners announced our investment in Hello Patient and partnership with Alex Cohen (+ the rest of the Hello Patient team who make it all possible). The investment thesis is simple: 1/ Alex is cracked. And by “cracked”, I mean he ships product like crazy, deeply understands healthcare economics, and always has a new peptide to try. 2/ Hello Patient arms practices with a toolkit to solve their number one problem: acquiring and retaining patients. The brutal reality is that healthcare practices are high CAC, low retention services businesses with a mid- and bottom-funnel conversion problem. Patients can find doctors (via referral, ZocDoc, etc.) but struggle to get in the door (50% of patient calls go unanswered!). In B2B software we’d diagnose that as “over investment in top-of-funnel and a mid- and bottom-funnel conversion problem”. Healthcare practices have neither the vocabulary to describe nor the tooling to solve these problems, so they remain rampant. 3/ Early customers are utterly obsessed with Hello Patient’s product. Incredible team + burning problem + adoring customers is a rare combination and makes any deal a no brainer. Which brings us to the bigger picture, which is always important when you’re investing in healthcare and monetary incentives can make things go all out of wack. I’m lucky enough to be a (reasonably) healthy 27 year old who basically only goes to a doctor when I fall off a bike and bruise my ribs or get yet another case of poison oak. However, that certainly won’t be the case forever and isn’t the case for my parents, grandparents, and so many others. I want to live in a future where access to care isn’t burdened by games of phone tag and slow administrative processes and a future where practices are financially healthy and spend all their time focused on optimizing care, not wondering how they’ll break even this month. Hello Patient helps create that future, and I’m honored to be a small part of that journey. Pictured: it wouldn't be a 2025 series A without a launch video

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Today, X, The Moonshot Factory quietly unveiled A-Life, a project that brings biomanufacturing into the AI era. It may sound niche, but it’s one of the most transformative projects I’ve ever worked on (and that includes Calico Life Sciences, Google’s effort to understand aging and lifespan). Here’s why: We now have a clear way to use living cells, like yeast and bacteria, to produce materials we currently make from petroleum and waste-heavy processes. Look around you: the textiles in your clothes, the packaging of your snacks, the medicines and supplements you take. All of these could be made cheaper, cleaner, and with less waste through biomanufacturing. What’s new is that the team built a set of AI tools specifically for biology that makes this possible at scale. For years, making biomanufacturing cost-competitive has been described as a $30 trillion holy grail for the industry. A-Life is the first time we’ve seen a viable path forward. 🔗 Introducing A-Life: https://lnkd.in/ggrYuUCS For me, collaborating on this was a full-circle ikigai moment, bringing together Google, wonderful teammates, molecular biology, and company-building all at once. Always say yes to those rare moments! Huge thanks to Relly, Jodi, Odd, and the whole team for making this such a fun version of ‘work.’ In my University of Oxford lab days, just trying to keep fibroblast cells alive, I would have been stoked to see this future taking shape. Photo: Making biochemistry thrilling since 2005 :).

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