#83: Sandra Bullock & February's Hottest Seeds 🌱

The 1-minute healthtech round up. Healthtech news that's phwoar-ing, not boring.

Hi friends,

This week: Healthtech topples fintech for seed funding, the latest Y combinator cohort, & a warm welcome to 90s indie sensations Blur.

News Bites 🥪

🔥 February’s Hottest Seeds - Fintech usually wins this every month, but it’s healthtech’s turn this month. 29 companies raised a combined €63m, compared with 21 Fintech’s bringing in €55m, putting those bankers back where they belong. Which, let’s be honest, is The Ned.

♀ IWD 2022: ‘Discussion is good. Action is better’ - International Women’s Day gets a lot of stick for companies virtue signalling and then not changing anything, but it can be useful as a day to take stock and look at how gender diversity is changing.

🎬 AWS Healthcare Accelerator in the UK Announces 12 Startups Selected for the Inaugural Programme - Amazon’s first AWS UK cohort, with 50% of the cohort identifying as women-owned or minority-owned startups, contains some absolute bobby-dazzlers.

🌳 Why working with the healthcare system is key to reforming rural health - To paraphrase Damon Albarn: “Lives in a house, a very big house in the country, bad GERD acidity, lots of comorbidities in the country”.

💸 Y Combinator 2022 Intake Y Combinator, which has funded 3,000+ startups in the last 18 years (including Stripe, Airbnb, Dropbox, Gusto & GitLab) has revealed its 2020 cohort, with 5 healthtech companies making the list, including the UK’s Oto and Phase Biolabs.

🤳 Google gives a sneak peek into its new AI dermatology assistant - Google is looking to use AI to help patients find answers to dermatology questions using their cameras.

💹 What to Listen to 🔊

⭕️ Digital Health Unplugged with Edward St John - Wrap your ears around Edward St John discussing Rewired Pitchfest and Concentric Health for 27 of your English minutes.

🥼 Marrying Data Science And AI At Novant Health Where Innovation Is a Lifestyle with Angela Yochem - I’ve read books with shorter titles than this. If you manage to stay awake through reading the title, the pod itself is genuinely interesting.

Opportunities 🕵️‍♀️

🤴 Peppy - Chief of Staff - If The West Wing has taught me anything, it’s that the Chief of Staff wanders hallways shouting at people on the President’s behalf. Pigeon imagines this role is the same. Raised £6.6 million in July 2021.

🧾 HeliosX - VP Growth - Despite sounding like a bad sci-fi movie starring Sandra Bullock and Dwayne The Rock Johnson*, HeliosX does some amazing stuff across their product range. Raised £53.5 in March 2021.

*Plot synopsis: A turbo-mega-meteor is hurtling towards the sun at 14 gigahertz a week, and only the twin-powers of brawn and science can save humanity from a fate worse than a fate worse than death. Rated R for ridiculous. Straight to VHS.