Britain's Digital-Health Startups Seek First Aid

摘要

In the U.S., venture funding for digital-health startups has risen more than four fold in the past five years, according to the Rock Health fund. In 2014 alone the yearly total more than doubled, topping $4 billion. That was all Peter Hames needed to hear. Hames is the co-founder of Big Health, for a time one of the hottest health startups in the U.K. Its online sleep therapy program, Sleepio, had won the backing of doctors and patient: and a handful of industry awards. But Hames knew he faced long odds pitching the idea to the U.K.'s National Healtl Service, which controls almost all medical spending in Britain. So six months ago, on the advice of investor Index Ventures, the Oxford-educated native of Leeds packed his bags and moved Big Health to San Francisco. "The bigger opportunity was here," says Hames, who now sells the program to employer insurance plans. "I wanted to see it happen in the U.K., but it was clear it wasn't going to."