French InsurTech Alan has just secured a new $193M funding round and has reached a $4.5B valuation.
The French #HealthTech sector has been highly dynamic.
But how does it compare to its German counterpart, the largest economy and #healthcare system in Europe?
I wrote down a few thoughts. All the figures below are coming from the HealthTech Alpha platform from Galen Growth | Insights You Can Trust.
1️⃣ 𝐈𝐧 𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐦𝐬 𝐨𝐟 𝐟𝐮𝐧𝐝𝐢𝐧𝐠, 𝐅𝐫𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐡 𝐇𝐞𝐚𝐥𝐭𝐡𝐓𝐞𝐜𝐡 𝐢𝐬 𝐛𝐞𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐆𝐞𝐫𝐦𝐚𝐧 𝐇𝐞𝐚𝐥𝐭𝐡𝐓𝐞𝐜𝐡
Total funding to date for HealthTech startups has reached nearly $10 billion in France (with 60% allocated to the top 30 companies), while in Germany, it remains below $5 billion (with over 50% going to the top 30).
As a result, France boasts four officially recognized unicorns—Doctolib, Alan, Owkin, and Dental Monitoring—whereas Germany currently lacks any officially acknowledged unicorns (though Caresyntax could be considered an unofficial one).
2️⃣ 𝐅𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐜𝐞 𝐡𝐚𝐬 𝐦𝐮𝐜𝐡 𝐦𝐨𝐫𝐞 "𝐃𝐞𝐞𝐩 𝐑𝐞𝐬𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐜𝐡" 𝐇𝐞𝐚𝐥𝐭𝐡𝐓𝐞𝐜𝐡 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐧 𝐆𝐞𝐫𝐦𝐚𝐧𝐲
In the top 30, #France has 3 AI drug discovery #scaleups (Owkin, Aqemia, Iktos) and even one foundation model for biology (Bioptimus).
In the top 30, #Germany does not have any "Deep Research" HealthTech, except Molecular Health (founded before 2010, and therefore not listed in the visual).
3️⃣ 𝐌&𝐀 𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐯𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐞𝐬 𝐛𝐞𝐭𝐰𝐞𝐞𝐧 𝐅𝐫𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐡 & 𝐆𝐞𝐫𝐦𝐚𝐧 𝐇𝐞𝐚𝐥𝐭𝐡𝐓𝐞𝐜𝐡 𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐞𝐱𝐩𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐞𝐝
Most of the top 30 HealthTech companies in France and Germany do not operate in both countries (Doctolib, the leading HealthTech in Europe, is an exception).
Similar to how French FinTech Qonto acquired German FinTech Penta, we may see comparable acquisitions in the HealthTech sector.
For example:
➡️ 🇫🇷 Alan and 🇩🇪 Ottonova, both AI-enabled InsurTech.
➡️ 🇫🇷 Incepto and 🇩🇪 Deepc, both AI algorithms aggregator platforms.
➡️ 🇫🇷 Ouihelp and 🇩🇪 Kenbi, both home-care platforms.
4️⃣ 𝐔𝐒 𝐚𝐬 𝐬𝐞𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐝 𝐦𝐚𝐫𝐤𝐞𝐭 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐇𝐞𝐚𝐥𝐭𝐡𝐓𝐞𝐜𝐡 𝐬𝐜𝐚𝐥𝐞-𝐮𝐩𝐬
Although founded in France or Germany, most HealthTech companies expand to the U.S. as their next step, rather than to France or to Germany (except for Doctolib).
The reasoning is clear: the U.S. accounts for over 40% of the HealthTech market, while Germany represents 4% and France 3%.
As a result, VC investors tend to adopt a 'go big or go home' strategy.
5️⃣ 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐔𝐊 𝐰𝐚𝐬 𝐢𝐧 𝐩𝐨𝐥𝐞 𝐩𝐨𝐬𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝟑 𝐲𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐬 𝐚𝐠𝐨 𝐛𝐮𝐭 𝐡𝐚𝐬 𝐝𝐢𝐬𝐚𝐩𝐩𝐨𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐝 𝐬𝐢𝐧𝐜𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐧
Besides France and Germany, UK had a leading portfolio of HealthTech scale-ups, but:
➡️ Babylon (AI virtual care) went bankrupt
➡️ Exscientia (AI drug discovery) was acquired by Recursion and recently published disappointing results for its AI developed drug.
➡️ BenevolentAI (AI drug discovery) went public with a current market cap of $100M (almost 8x less than its $766M total funding).