Dive Brief:
- Increases in venture capital investments have positioned 2025 to be a “strong year for global medtech funding,” according to a report from market data research firm PitchBook.
- First quarter VC funding totaled $4.1 billion, the highest it has been since 2022. The number of confirmed transactions hit 216, reversing a four-quarter decline.
- However, the uptick in medtech mergers and acquisitions that PitchBook predicted under the second Trump administration has yet to emerge, and antitrust regulators are still challenging deals.
Dive Insight:
Medtech VC activity fell in both 2022 and 2023, according to PitchBook. Last year brought signs that the market might be bottoming. The number of VC investments fell for the third year in a row, but the amount of funding was higher than in 2023.
Signs of a VC recovery continued into the first quarter of 2025, when the $260 million investment in whole-body-imaging startup Neko Health was the largest of 11 rounds worth $100 million or more. With Elon Musk’s brain implant startup Neuralink raising $650 million this month, PitchBook said preliminary data for the second quarter shows more than $3 billion of medtech VC funding so far.
VC exits are rare, though. PitchBook said there were no significant medtech VC exits in the first quarter, and the total exit value remained roughly in line with the previous two quarters. Total exit value in recent years has been driven by rare big deals, such as Tempus AI’s initial public offering in 2024 and the $6 billion acquisition of Athelas in 2023.
PitchBook highlighted three notable exits that closed in the first quarter: Beta Bionics’ IPO, Hologics’ $350 million takeover of Gynesonics and Boston Scientific’s $540 million acquisition of SoniVie. The level of activity has fallen short of PitchBook’s expectations.
“Our earlier thesis that the new U.S. presidential administration’s more lenient regulatory stance would catalyze M&A activity has yet to play out, as broader market turbulence in early 2025 has complicated dealmaking conditions across sectors,” PitchBook said. “Additionally, regulatory resistance remains a headwind.”
PitchBook cited the Federal Trade Commission’s legal challenge to the $627 million private equity buyout of Surmodics as evidence of ongoing regulatory resistance. The FTC challenged the deal on the grounds it “would lead to a highly concentrated market for outsourced hydrophilic coatings and eliminate significant head-to-head competition.”
