Four Category-Defining HealthTech Companies
HealthTech is redefining healthcare. Nasdaq reported in 2020 that HealthTech companies were popping up by the day. Others are predicting that the digital health surge in 2020 will triple by 2027.
In the middle of this digital revolution, some HealthTech companies have emerged as category leaders.
Category creation is a tricky move for some companies. John Farkas, CEO of Golden Spiral, says, “If you are in the right place at the right time with the right idea, establishing early leadership in a category affords more access to funding, increased opportunity to attract top talent and a better chance of winning more market share over time.”
If you can define or create a category, you are proving that you have identified a problem and can deliver a solution that addresses a market problem in a new way.
Kevin Maney, one of the authors of Play Bigger, notes that category creation can be a great advantage. “People think in terms of categories. That’s the way we sort out a world full of lots of choices.” Anthony Kennada, in his book Category Creation, points out that our brains are wired to latch on to winning ideas. “Customers of category creators benefit from a company in the marketplace seeking to help them solve complex problems, get promoted, and self-actualize in their own lives and career journeys.”
Category creation is easy to see in consumer goods. Think of the proprietary eponyms of Kleenex, Clorox, Phillips Head Screwdriver, Band-Aid, and Jacuzzi. The pandemic and the necessity of remote meetings made Zoom a household name.
Who are the household names in HealthTech? The four companies profiled below have a chance at defining and pulling away in their categories. They are framing and understanding where patients and providers are now and casting a vision for where their solutions can take them.
Cedar | New York, N.Y.
Total funding: $351M
Employees: 404
Who is Cedar?
Cedar created a patient payment and engagement platform for hospitals, health systems, and medical groups with exceptional UX.
What Sets Cedar Apart?
Cedar walks patients through that confusing and emotional process of paying medical bills with grace and clear communication. Providers get paid faster with fewer complaints.
Providers love Cedar because it takes the pressure off of their staff to do most of the heavy lifting of collection.
Cedar conducted primary research that was covered by many news outlets. The research put Cedar on the radar of many journalists and analysts which added them to their “HealthTech to watch” lists.
Who Leads Marketing?
Bethany Hale has been leading marketing since 2019 and was elevated to Chief Marketing Officer in 2020. She had successful stints at IBM and Amex before coming to Cedar.
Listen to our interview with Bethany.
Olive | Columbus, Ohio
Total Funding: $856M
Employees: 1,130
Who is Olive?
Olive is an automation company using AI to increase the effectiveness of the healthcare workforce.
What Sets Olive Apart?
By giving healthcare workers a common computer interface that frees them for having to use multiple legacy systems, healthcare data and billing are much simpler and faster to process. Olive boasts their record of increasing revenue, reducing costs, and improving efficiency for hospitals, health systems, and payers.
Olive builds partnerships and thus multiplies its brand’s effectiveness and reach. In August 2021, it announced a key collaboration with Amazon AWS coining the phrase “The Internet of Healthcare” or IoH.
Who Leads Marketing?
Shoshana Deutschkron joined Olive in October 2020 after nearly five years of leading brand at Upwork.
Innovaccer | San Francisco, Calif.
Total Funding: $229M
Employees: 1,147
Who is Innovaccer?
Innovaccer is a healthcare data storage and clearinghouse solution that also provides excellent analytics for their users helping all of healthcare be more intelligent.
What Sets Innovaccer Apart?
Born out of a hackathon in Silicon Valley, founders discovered how to integrate data and bring better analysis to the end-user. They applied the technology to healthcare where data is spread among multiple warehouses. Their solution brings all the data together.
In seven years, they’ve gone from startup to a valuation of $1.3 billion.
KLAS gives high marks to Innovaccer’s new population health tool, Health Cloud and Data Activation Platform for enabling rapid integration of EHR, claims, care management, and social determinants of health data.
Who Leads Marketing
McKesson and Oracle veteran Andy Burtis brings extensive CMO experience from his time in the role at Bugcrowd and C3.ai
Listen to our interview with Innovaccer’s Dipty Desai
Iodine Software | Austin, Tex.
Total Funding: Private Equity
Employees: 122
Who is Iodine Software?
Iodine Software deploys machine learning to create predictive analytics to help physicians and other practitioners see where their patients may be going, improve patient outcomes, and simplify billing in the process.
What Sets Iodine Apart?
Insurance system coding has long been a challenge
They acquired a physician engagement platform in May 2021 to expand their attraction to providers.
Iodine’s AwareCDI Suite has helped nearly 500 hospitals recognize $1.5 billion in additional appropriate reimbursement annually.
Who Leads Marketing?
Amanda Wratchford is VP of Marketing. She joined in March 2021 after three other B2B marketing teams in the healthcare space.
Category creation is not for every company. Having the right instincts at the right time and the right resources to assert your thesis is critical. A poorly-founded category assertion can be a fast waste of time, energy, and money — not to mention reputation. You will likely need some outside help to ensure you can step far enough away from yourself and your aspirations to get a real-world, objective view of the problem you aim to solve. If you’d like to talk about how your HealthTech product fits into the marketplace, schedule a no-obligation strategic consultation today.
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