Average Headcount Growth & Funding Per Employee, By Segment

(Where) will money flow into kidney care in 2024?

Money is a tool. It's the fuel that allows companies to invest in top talent, new products, and future pipelines. It's also the thing that allows founders and fresh ideas to take flight. But despite billions of dollars invested into kidney care over the last few years, 2024 holds no prisoners and makes no promises. Certain sub-segments continue to get disproportionate levels of funding, while others face mounting losses in the so-called "valley of death" on their path to commercialization.

What's in this table

• Four (4) segments in focus: (a) value-based care (VBC); (b) remote patient monitoring (RPM); (c) Diagnostics (hardware + software + AI/ML); and (d) Medical Devices (dialysis access + portable machines).
• 8-10 companies in each segment: focusing on venture-backed businesses with at least 5 FTEs. This is not exhaustive. In fact, several early stage device companies on my radar check one box or the other, but not both.
• 1-year avg headcount growth, by segment: pulled directly from LinkedIn. It's not perfect. In some cases the 6-month growth number differed significantly from the 1-year, but in all cases they were directionally consistent.
• Average funding per employee, by segment: divided the amount of total funding raised (dilutive + non-dilutive) by the total number of employees (per LinkedIn). A (rough) way to estimate and compare capital needs and efficiency across the four segments.

Takeaways:

1. Growth category leaders
2. Capital efficiency category leaders
3. Capital requirements by segment

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About me & signals

I'm Tim Fitzpatrick. By day, I'm building IKONA; by night, I write Signals— curating & sharing lessons from the frontiers of healthcare technology, one [space] at a time. My goal is to make the frontiers of healthcare technology more accessible and actionable for everyone. I do this primarily in two ways, by:

• Writing and interviewing experts about topics like entrepreneurship, commercialization, leadership, and beyond.
• Creating visuals to capture and communicate these complex worlds in ways data and deep dives cannot.

Visuals like these are my way of amplifying awareness of the most pressing challenges and promising solutions across healthcare, technology, and society.