Global Digital Health 1000. 2021 Stats and 2022 Applications Open

Applications for the 2022 Global Digital Health 1000 are now open and close 31 July 2022. Each regional list will be announced at our Global Impact Summits Sep-Nov 2022. Please also check our 30 individual maps for the 2021 Global Digital Health 1000, Global EdTech 1000 and Global Climate Tech 1000.

The purpose of the Global Digital Health 1000 is to identify the most promising, young, fast-growing and innovative startups in each major region of the world. To be eligible, startups must be less than 10 years old, headquartered in the region in question, or predominantly focused on that market (e.g. > 80% revenue/customers). They must also be ‘startups’ (‘pre-exit’, i.e. not acquired, a subsidiary or listed) and not controlled by an investor group (e.g. via private equity buyout or controlling investment).

The HolonIQ Health Intelligence Unit and select market experts assess each organization based on HolonIQ’s startup scoring rubric, which in brief covers the following dimensions:

Market. The quality and relative attractiveness of the specific market category in which the company competes.
Product. The quality, uniqueness and impact of the product itself.
Team. The expertise and diversity of the leadership team.
Capital. The financial health of the company and its ability to generate or secure sufficient funding.
Momentum. Positive changes in the size, velocity and impact of the company over time.

At each of our regional summits we will announce and shine a light on the most promising startups operating in the region. By the end of the summits, we start to see the full and diverse global picture of innovation and technology across the burgeoning digital health landscape.

In 2021, one in three of the Global Digital Health 1000 was focused on either patient connectivity or data and analytics, with wellness, clinical development, diagnostics and treatment/monitoring all represented as significant categories. Improvements in technology adoption across global health systems helped to drive growth across all categories.

The importance of connectivity to geographically large and relatively under-developed health systems can clearly be seen in Sub Saharan Africa, South Asia and South East Asia. In North America, wellness was the biggest area of focus for digital health startups, reflecting both the established existing market for connectivity platforms and the focus on personal health (physical and mental) as the pandemic subsides. Europe’s strong academic heritage is also underscored by the 22% of startups focusing on research and development.

By analyzing the founding year of the Global Digital Health 1000, we can also see trends in company formation, biased of course by the fact that we are looking at the most promising startups region by region.

Interesting outliers include Sub Saharan Africa, which has the highest percentage (16%) of startups formed since the pandemic. At the other end of spectrum, almost 60% of startups in our European cohort were founded prior to 2015. At a regional level, the Americas has the youngest group of startups, with two out of three digital health businesses founded post 2015.

The two charts below show the trend in the founding year, or company formation, for the Global Digital Health 1000. Left to right in both charts we see the composition of the startups founded in that range. On the left we see the formation composition by sub sector and on the right we see the formation composition by macro region categories.

HolonIQ’s Intelligence Platform powers decisions that matter at the world’s largest and leading institutions, technology platforms, companies and investors. But one of our most demanding Platform power users is our own Intelligence Unit. Our engineering team builds software and tools that power our customers and our own Intelligence Unit to make tens of thousands of machine-learning powered and human-driven quantitative and qualitative assessments, applying the scientific method to impact intelligence and investing.

The screenshot below shows a sample ratings cohort of companies that have been assessed on multiple dimensions and are being evaluated by an analyst. We build tools that help analysts leverage technology, data science, and human evaluation to power decisions that matter. Our Intelligence Unit applies those tools, along with a rigorous, scientific mindset to, in this case, identify the most promising Digital Health startups around the world.

Explore each of the 30 individual impact maps for the 2021 Global Digital Health 1000, Global EdTech 1000 and Global Climate Tech 1000.