#104: Rise of the chatbots 💬

The one-minute healthtech roundup. Healthtech news, not healthtech snooze.

Hi friends,

This week: Cera raise big, unicorn stock sinks, and if we lose a funding battle to Proptech, Pigeon will turn this car newsletter around and go back home.

News Bites 🥪

🕶 Conjoined twins separated with the help of VR - Joined at the head, Pigeon should add.

💬 Why mental health chatbots need strict guardrails - Does Wysa’s cofounder have a vested interest in promoting mental health chatbots? Yes. Has he done so in a balanced way highlighting the potential dangers of the tech? Also yes.

🌱 July's Hottest Seeds - Not being funny, healthtech, but pull your finger out. $22m down on Fintech, and only just ahead of Proptech. Yeuch. If we come third in a two-horse race to bloomin’ Proptech, there will be hell to pay.

📉 Teladoc stock sinks after $3B loss in Q2 - Q2 saw a $3 billion noncash goodwill impairment charge*. Revenue increased 18% y-o-y to $592.4 million. Writing about healthtech unicorns’ stock losing value is becoming about as repetitive as being Henry VIII’s best man.

🧑‍⚕️ Cera raise $320M to make long-term care inside hospitals obsolete- Big raise this, and shows the market’s increased emphasis on social care.

What to Listen to 🔊

💊 (OVER)DOSE How can we prevent medication errors? - Faces of Digital Health have released a short documentary about preventing medication errors. Trailer here for my ruined-by-Netflix-choice-paralysis-pals.

🧬 Ori Spotlight #17 - Mike Paglia – Ori CEO Jason C. Foster is joined by Mike Paglia, COO of ElevateBio to discuss the long-term benefits of digital manufacturing processes in CGT, and the importance of removing the cost barrier.

Opportunities 🕵️‍♀️

🛠 Head of Operations, Thriva - Are you an operations thriva? A methodology prescriba? A process deep-diva? Click the link, they might hire-ya. This job description was brought to you, needlessly, in the style of a Guy Ritchie movie.

🇦🇺 Marketing Intern, Heidi - “Why is Pigeon showing an intern position?” I hear you cry. Because it’s in AUSTRALIA. Where it is not only hot, but built for being hot. Unlike England which is built for being not-hot and is currently hot.

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*Noncash Goodwill Impairment Charge will be supporting The Kooks at the Camden Roundhouse on November 8th. You thought this was going to be useful information about what a “noncash goodwill impairment charge” is, didn’t you? Well, it’s not. **

**Asterix within asterix. An impairment charge is an accounting term used to describe a drastic reduction in the value of an asset. Goodwill is an intangible asset that a company assumes after acquiring another company. In laymans terms, this usually means that a company has bought another company and lost all that acquired company’s customers