Singapore’s Insignia Ventures Intensifies Push Into Healthtech

(Bloomberg) -- Insignia Ventures Partners is doubling down on health-care technology startups as the pandemic has boosted demand on everything from personalized test kits to mental wellness services.

“Five years ago, investors hardly even looked at healthtech in Southeast Asia,” Yinglan Tan, founding managing partner of Insignia, said in an interview at the Bloomberg New Economy Forum in Singapore on Friday. “In these past two years, thanks to greater awareness of health-care issues, rising health-care spending, and greater trust in digital solutions, the inertia has made way for the momentum of healthtech startups to grow.”

In 2021 alone, the Singapore-based firm invested in three startups in the sector: mental health company Intellect, women-focused Ease Healthcare as well as Vietnam’s Medici. Insignia manages two early-stage VC funds and a newly closed vehicle designed to inject capital into some of its portfolio companies likely to hit the $1 billion valuation mark.

In the first half of this year, a record $1.1 billion of venture capital went into healthtech startups in Southeast Asia, compared with about $800 million in all of 2020, according to the latest Google, Temasek, Bain report on the region’s internet economy.

The sector is also attracting venture investors elsewhere in Asia. More than half of Qiming Venture Partners’ China investments now go into health care, Gary Rieschel, the firm’s founding managing partner, said at the same event.

The New Economy Forum is being organized by Bloomberg Media Group, a division of Bloomberg LP, the parent company of Bloomberg News.

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