buying
Providers have replaced investors as the market makers. In 2025, health systems aren't just buying software, they're dictating what gets built and what gets funded. If a hospital system won't pilot it, a VC won't back it. Your pitch needs to answer one question: which provider is already using this, and what happened when they did?
AI-enabled health tech companies raise 83% more per round. In 2025, 54% of all digital health funding went to companies positioning as AI-first, up from 37% the year before. This isn't about slapping "AI" on your pitch deck. VCs can see through that instantly. It's about whether AI is genuinely core to how your product delivers value inside a clinical workflow. If it is, say it clearly. If it isn't, don't fake it.
$250M Series D in February. $300M Series E four months later. Abridge turns patient-clinician conversations into structured clinical notes. That's not a nice-to-have, it's embedded in the workflow. 100% of surveyed health systems now use ambient clinical documentation AI. Abridge didn't pitch "we use AI." They pitched "we're already inside the system, and here's the usage data to prove it." That's the difference.
Three rounds in seven months. $550M total. A "scientific superintelligence" play. General Catalyst and Flagship Pioneering led. This is what happens when the narrative is big enough and the team has the credentials to back it. Lila didn't pitch a product, they pitched a platform that could reshape drug discovery. At this scale, VCs aren't buying revenue. They're buying the possibility of owning the category.
$7.8M seed. Specialist health VC leading. Emerged from stealth with the round already closed. This is the pattern at the seed stage, Pelion Health Partners doesn't invest in "AI for healthcare." They invest in teams that understand how health systems actually buy and implement technology. Honey Health had that answer before they ever pitched. The round was a formality because the hard question, "how does this sit inside the system?", was already solved.
commercial
model
Most health tech founders can build the product. Most can navigate regulation. That's not where rounds die. Rounds die because founders can't articulate how they make money inside the health system.
If you're in Europe or rest-of-world: the question is how you scale into the US, because that's where the revenue ceiling lifts. Every serious health tech VC is asking this.
If you're in the US: the question is where you sit in the reimbursement chain. Who pays? How? Through which pathway? Is it the provider, the payer, or the patient?
The founders who closed in 2025 had this answer before pitch one. They didn't just show a product demo, they showed a revenue model that VCs could underwrite. That's the gap.