#274: Top o' the funding for ya 🍀
The one-minute healthtech roundup, brought to you by SomX and kindly sponsored by AlbionVC and Harley Street Health District's Healthtech Pioneer Award.
Hello healthtechies,
This week: A funding special so you know what’s up. It might feel a long way from helping patients when we talk about VC and private equity, but the more money flowing into healthtech, the more fuel there is in our entire sector for new ideas, new startups and impact.
🎙️ Fancy this newsletter in podcast form? This week, Jessica chats to healthtech VC, Andrew Elder. He’s a partner at AlbionVC which has just partnered with the Harley Street Health District to help increase tech adoption into providers.
And it’s on YouTube if you want to look at things whilst listening to things.
This week saw the launch of a brand new annual recognition programme - The Harley Street HealthTech Pioneer Award - from AlbionVC and Harley Street Health District, spotlighting the most innovative UK and European healthtech startups shaping the future of care. If you’re a founder, fly on down to ‘Opportunities’ to find out more about the impressive support package and how to enter! 🦅
News Bites 🥪
💰 The Luck of The Irish: Having secured a near half-billion euros of investment (€491.3 million, if you’re a pedant like us) across 89 VC deals, Irish life sciences and healthtech companies are laughing. Forget global funding freezes, Enterprise Ireland, the government organisation responsible for growing Irish enterprises, was the world’s most active life sciences and healthtech investor in 2024 (and let’s not forget that Dublin houses giants like eBay, Paypal, Meta, Amazon… 12.5% corporation tax is looking increasingly attractive to Pigeon)*.
🚫 The Misinformation Messiahs are AI Deepfakes: Brace yourselves… The Guardian reports that AI is now generating deepfakes of real doctors on platforms like TikTok, turning trusted medical professionals into unwitting mouthpieces for health misinformation. Despite what the investors are doing (see above, kind reader), the public trust crisis just got a whole lot deeper… and a lot faker.
and likewise…
🧘 Stop Asking ChatGPT for Therapy: We’ve written extensively on this in the past few pigeon posts, and this one’s behind the FT’s paywall, but we’ll summarise… Headspace’s CEO is now vocal on the risks of unqualified advice. This is good. More mainstream pickup = more awareness = increasing standards.
🇱🇺 Tiny country, big ambition: In more Euro-centric fundraising news, Luxembourg-based Catalpa Ventures have closed a €30 million round dedicated to fuelling early-stage healthtech innovation, showing that there is, in fact, investor appetite for foundational technology at early stage. They want to improve healthcare outcomes “for at least 100 million people” (FYI: Luxembourg’s population is around 680,000 - they mean business).
🤖 JP Morgan Weighs In On Healthtech: Continuing the funding trend, pigeon-ites: Banking giant JPM have released a new spotlight report on the healthtech landscape, showing how investment in the sector has fundamentally shifted. AI-focused deals now swallow a whopping 75% of all VC funding, confirming what many of us already suspected - AI has clearly taken over and is controlling the minds of all investors.**
Flow Neuroscience scores FDA approval for at-home depression device - Not content with making (brain) waves over here in the UK, Flow Neuroscience’s FL-100 has been given the US regulatory seal of approval as a standalone treatment or alongside other treatments for moderate to severe major depressive disorders in adults aged 18 and older. This one piqued Pigeon’s interest way back in October last year, when we asked GP and mental health expert Dr Junaid Hassain for his take on the neurotech wearable 👇
… and if you want the full founder story and a deep dive on tDCS technology, Daniel was on The Healthtech Podcast a couple of weeks ago 👇
🇨🇦 Canada Chases the $37 Billion Femtech Bag: Policy makers across the pond have had their heads turned - our Canadian friends are now aggressively targeting the global multi-billion dollar women’s health market as they hope to position themselves as a “major hub” for women’s innovation and ongoing investment. Femtech Canada announced it will join the United Nations Population Fund’s Equity 2030 Alliance and co-lead of the Technology Cluster. “We’re done talking about potential.” Here, here.
whilst finally for this week, for Canada’s neighbours…
🇺🇸 The Feds Finally Get The AI Memo: This one from The Independent - the US health department has unveiled its strategic plan to force expand the adoption of AI into every corner of its bureaucracy. Usual stuff about more efficient government department etc etc, but the 20-page document casually throws in AI analysing patient data 😳. “It is time to tear down these barriers to progress and unite in our use of technology to Make America Healthy Again.” Genius. Hadn’t actually thought to remove the barriers. And when exactly was America healthiest, again?
What to Listen to 🔊
👆🏼 Thoroughly enjoyed this one with Sam. Pastel Health is a brand new startup that’s raised a seed round (epic in itself) to redesign the outpatient department model.
Events 📅
Congrats to NXGN (the next generation network for future healthtech and biotech leaders) for wrapping up 2025 with a superb event at Google’s HQ last week. Just 8 months since starting, they hosted a packed room with Google Cloud. Pigeon certainly knows just how hard community building is in this sector, so a huge congrats.
If you want to get a much more unhinged newsletter with 100x the volume of memes and language you’ll only understand if you’re in your 20s, subscribe here while it’s still only £1/year. It’s a not-for-profit community, and everything they make goes into their events throughout the year.
Happy Holidays! 🎄
Radical Health
📅 Jan 19 - 21
📍 Helsinki, Finland
… way more events to follow in 2026.
Opportunities 🕵️♀️
🧭 Harley Street Healthtech Pioneer Award 2026 Want to be in with a chance to accelerate your growth, expand your network, and gain unparalleled visibility across the healthtech landscape? If you’re an early-stage UK and European healthtech company with proven impact and are ready to take the next step in your scaling journey, you could be in with a chance of winning an entire ecosystem support package, including support from:
Hale House - Six months desk access and membership
Google - Technical advisory and credits
AlbionVC - 1:1 fundraise-readiness mentorship
HLTH Europe - One complimentary ticket
HSBC Innovation Banking - Free banking for one year
Coulter Partners - Half-day workshop on scaling your team
Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati - Expert support on fundraising strategy, term sheets, and/or US expansion planning
Harley Street Health District - Curated introductions to leading global providers. Think The Mayo Clinic, The Cleveland Clinic, The London Clinic and Northwestern.
SomX - Comms and marketing amplification package
Applications are open until Monday 19 January 2026 with the winner announced in early February. What are you waiting for?! Get a flap on.*** Apply here.
💰 Investment Manager at Techstars: Techstars is one of the most active pre-seed investors in the world, and are on the lookout for a London-based Investor to work directly alongside their MD. This one combines early-stage investing with hands-on delivery of value for founders through their accelerator program (and if you have founder or early startup experience, this would be a major plus).
🛠️ Clinical Engineer at Hippo Labs: Are you a Clinical Engineer wanting to serve as the critical bridge between engineering teams and end-users? Well, chuck your hat into the ring here; Hippo want to recruit a team of clinical engineers that will ensure that digital health products are safe, compliant, and clinically useful.
🚀 Venture Fellowship at EF (Entrepreneur First): The EF Venture Fellowship is an intense program designed to identify and support exceptional individuals ready to launch ambitious, high-growth startups from scratch. Think of it as find-a-friend, but for innovation. Or, as Dom from TORTUS put it, Love Island for tech nerds.
👂 Full Cycle Sales Representative (East Coast) at Oto: Oto is a clinically proven program for tinnitus. They’re Y Combinator grads, backed by Octopus Ventures and this is a hands-on individual contributor role suited to someone who thrives in early-stage environments, learns fast, and can build strong relationships with clinical professionals and practice owners.
* Hi, James here. Totally unrelated, and fun fact, I am an Irish citizen (my mum’s side of the family is from Wexford). The main benefit is obviously zipping through customs while you lot are in the Brexit queue, but anything Zuckerberg and Bezos are doing, we should copy, right?
** We can reasonably expect investors to use AI to get opinions on pitch decks and the transcripts of their calls with startups. That means we’re asking AI if investing in AI is a good thing. Extrapolate that…
*** I can accept that some of the attempts at opportunistic pigeon-based humour are close to, if not over, the line.