APAC's healthtech venture capital set to exceed US$5.5b in 2018

China raised more than US$1.1b in Q3.

Healthtech funding in the Asia Pacific (APAC) region in 2018 is on track to reach US$5.5b which is almost four times the funding achieved in 2015, according to Gavin Teo, general partner of venture capital firm B Capital Group.

China, India and Southeast Asia lead in terms of signing healthtech in APAC with deals totalling more than US$5.1b in Q3 2018. Of this, China raised US$5.1b.

“Digital health funding will continue to rise, especially with Chinese investors actively seeking healthtech businesses to invest in,” Teo said.

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The announcement was made during the 2018 HealthTech Investor and CEO Summit held in Singapore which featured panel discussions on new technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) and blockchain, as well as their impact on the healthcare landscape.

During the event, Indonesian startup Halodoc was also crowned the most innovative healthtech startup following its mission to improve the access to healthcare in Indonesia by delivering medicines in less than one hour via its partner Go-Jek.

“AI’s potential benefits are far-reaching and in healthcare it could help people to stay healthy via applications that put them in control of their health and wellbeing to medical diagnostics and drug discovery, AI applied research and applications are already taking hold in healthcare,” Element AI head of ASEAN & global manufacturing leader Luis Fernando Gonzalez added.

The healthtech industry is clearly booming and we anticipate this momentum to spill over to 2019, with a growing healthtech investment in the region and the strong positioning of healthtech startups in Asia, Galen Growth Asia co-founder and CEO Julien de Salaberry said.