In the third quarter of of the year, funding for digital health startups totaled $1.3 billion, down from the approximately $2 billion raised in each of the preceding quarters of 2019, per a new report from Rock Health.
The third-quarter results bring the year-to-date total to $5.5 billion. Digital health startups are now on track to raise an estimated $7.3 billion by the end of the year, the second-highest annual total after 2018's record-setting $8.3 billion.
Funding in the third quarter was led by behavioral health and women's health companies. Behavioral health startups such as Talkspace and Calm have raised a total of $416 million, with the average deal size up 73 percent from 2018, at $26 million, even as overall digital health deal size has dropped this year.
Women's health, which includes startups such as Nurx and Cleo, is on a similar trajectory: Funding for the sector increased more than 800 percent from 2014 to 2018, and 10 companies have raised a total of $177 million in 2019 so far.
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