Failed Healthcare Startups
293 venture-backed healthcare startups have shut down after raising $28.2B combined — about 13% of the entire graveyard. The biggest cohort last raised in 2022, and the most common final round was Other.
Healthcare startups fight regulation, reimbursement cycles, and long enterprise sales on top of the normal startup death modes. Many of the graveyard entries here raised significant capital before the unit economics of care delivery caught up with them.
The Damage, by the Numbers
$13.5M
Median raised before shutdown
$96.4M
Average raised — the big flameouts drag it up
69
Died holding $100M+ in funding
3
Raised $1B+ and still closed
Class of the crash
Closed healthcare startups by year of their final funding round
74
110
72
27
9
2021
$6.4B
2022
$9.5B
2023
$9.3B
2024
$2.5B
2025
$394.1M
How far they got
Last round raised before shutting down
Pre-Seed
20
Seed
65
Series A
22
Series B
22
Series C+
7
Post-IPO
45
Debt & Notes
21
Other
91
Based on the last five years of fundraising data tracked in the VCbacked database.
The Graveyard
Showing 100 of 293 closed startups
Company | Raised | Last Round | What They Did | Location | Founders | Site | Contact |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Physicians Realty Trust | $2.3B | Post-IPO | Physicians Realty Trust, is a real estate investment trust (REIT). | Milwaukee, Wisconsin, United States | — | Reveal | |
EQRx | $1.9B | Post-IPO | EQRx is a biotechnology company that focuses on re-engineering the process of drug discovery to make them affordable. | Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States | Alexis Borisy | Reveal | |
Babylon | $1.2B | Post-IPO | Babylon aims to provide accessible, affordable healthcare by combining AI with doctors. | London, England, United Kingdom | Ali Parsa | Reveal | |
Global Blood Therapeutics | $969.5M | Post-IPO | GBT is a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company developing a therapy for sickle cell disease. | South San Francisco, California, United States | Andrej Sali | Reveal | |
Cue | $899.6M | Grant | Cue is a healthcare technology company that enables people to manage their health through actionable and connected health data. | San Diego, California, United States | Ayub Khattak | Reveal | |
Olive | $856.3M | Series H | Olive is a developer of an artificial intelligence workforce, automated revenue cycle and claims management for the healthcare industry. | Columbus, Ohio, United States | Bradley Mascho | Reveal | |
Axonics Modulation Technologies | $735.6M | Post-IPO | Axonics Modulation Technologies is a pre-revenue company developing novel implantable neuromodulation. | Irvine, California, United States | Raymond Cohen | Reveal | |
SmileDirectClub | $694.5M | Post-IPO | SmileDirectClub offers home invisible aligners, a series of plastic aligners that gradually shift teeth into their desired position. | Nashville, Tennessee, United States | Alex Fenkell | Reveal | |
ACELYRIN | $558.0M | Series C | ACELYRIN is a biopharma company that identifies, acquires, and accelerates the development and commercialization of life-changing therapies. | Los Angeles, California, United States | Robert Carey | Reveal | |
Dice Therapeutics | $532.4M | Post-IPO | Dice Therapeutics is a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company that makes medicines for chronic autoimmune and inflammatory diseases. | San Francisco, California, United States | Kevin Judice | Reveal | |
Provention Bio | $498.5M | Post-IPO | Provention Bio is a clinical stage biopharmaceutical dedicated to sourcing, developing, and commercializing novel therapeutics. | Red Bank, New Jersey, United States | Ashleigh Palmer | Reveal | |
scPharmaceuticals | $456.6M | Post-IPO | ScPharmaceuticals is a biopharmaceutical company developing a portfolio of transformative pharmaceutical products for subcutaneous delivery. | Lexington, Massachusetts, United States | Pieter Muntendam | Reveal | |
Scorpion Therapeutics | $420.0M | Series C | Scorpion Therapeutics is a clinical-stage oncology company that specializes in precision medicine for cancer patients. | Boston, Massachusetts, United States | Gaddy Getz | Reveal | |
VectivBio | $399.0M | Post-IPO | VectivBio is a biotechnology company committed to making innovative treatments for patients suffering from serious rare diseases. | Basel, Basel-Stadt, Switzerland | Luca Santarelli | Reveal | |
Exscientia | $376.7M | Grant | Exscientia is a pharmatech company that uses an end-to-end AI platform to design and discover new drugs. | Oxford, Oxfordshire, United Kingdom | Andrew Hopkins | Reveal | |
ITeos Therapeutics | $369.7M | Post-IPO | ITeos Therapeutics is a biotechnology company that specializes in tumor immunology, cancer immunotherapy, and drug discovery. | Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States | Michel Detheux | Reveal | |
PhenomeX | $357.6M | Debt | PhenomeX is a provider of life sciences that have the era of the phenome as the next revolution in biology and medicine unfolds. | Emeryville, California, United States | Bill Davidow | Reveal | |
Inozyme | $353.1M | Post-IPO | Inozyme is a biopharmaceutical company developing therapeutics for rare diseases, with a focus on bone health. | Boston, Massachusetts, United States | Axel Bolte | Reveal | |
Center for Breakthrough Medicines | $350.0M | Corporate | Center for Breakthrough Medicines is an innovative cell and gene therapy focusing on contract development and manufacturing organization. | King Of Prussia, Pennsylvania, United States | Audrey Greenberg | Reveal | |
Forward | $350.0M | Series E | Forward is a healthcare startup that provides a membership-based health care system. | San Francisco, California, United States | Adrian Aoun | Reveal | |
MindMaze Group (Legacy) | $340.7M | Venture | MindMaze Group (Legacy) provides digital assessments and therapeutics to treat and rehab patients. | Lausanne, Vaud, Switzerland | Tej Tadi | Reveal | |
Everside Health | $329.0M | Venture | Everside Health is a direct primary care provider offering convenient on-site, near-site, and virtual care for its members. | Denver, Colorado, United States | Rebecca Steinfort | Reveal | |
2seventy bio | $315.0M | Post-IPO | 2seventy bio is an immuno-oncology cell therapy company that discovers and develops cancer therapies. | Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States | — | Reveal | |
Point Biopharma | $310.0M | Post-IPO | Point Biopharma focused on the development and commercialization of radioligand therapies for the treatment of cancer. | Indianapolis, Indiana, United States | Howard Glase | Reveal | |
CARGO Therapeutics | $310.0M | Post-IPO | CARGO Therapeutics develops an adoptive cell therapy to benefit patients from potentially curative treatment options. | San Mateo, California, United States | Crystal Mackall | Reveal | |
Senda Biosciences | $309.0M | Series C | Senda Biosciences is a therapeutics platform company leveraging unprecedented insights into the molecular connections between humans. | Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States | Ignacio Martinez | Reveal | |
Friday Health Plans | $306.1M | PE | Friday Health Plans is a healthcare management company purposely built for today’s health insurance environment. | Alamosa, Colorado, United States | David Pinkert | Reveal | |
ReNAgade Therapeutics | $300.0M | Series A | ReNAgade Therapeutics focuses on the boundless potential of RNA therapeutics to treat disease. | Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States | Brian Goodman | Reveal | |
AmplifyBio | $279.8M | Venture | AmplifyBio is a biotechnology company that develops and advances treatments and cures for disease via cutting-edge technology and research. | West Jefferson, Ohio, United States | J. Kelly Ganjei | Reveal | |
Chinook Therapeutics | $276.0M | Post-IPO | Chinook Therapeutics is a biotechnology company that specializes in the fields of therapeutics and life science. | Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada | Ross Haghighat | Reveal | |
Medically Home | $274.5M | Venture | Medically Home is a tech-enabled clinical enterprise that offers safely-shifting medical care from hospitals to patient homes. | Boston, Massachusetts, United States | Andrew Lipman | Reveal | |
Gyroscope Therapeutics | $269.5M | Corporate | Gyroscope Therapeutics is a clinical-stage gene therapy company focused on developing therapies and treating diseases of the eye. | Stevenage, Herefordshire, United Kingdom | Andrew Lotery | Reveal | |
Chroma Medicine | $260.0M | Series B | Chroma Medicine is a biotechnology company that develops genetic medicines for the treatment of genetic disorders. | Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States | Angelo Lombardo | Reveal | |
Ribon Therapeutics | $259.0M | Venture | Ribon Therapeutics is a biotechnology company focused on the development of therapeutics treatments targeting stress support pathways. | Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States | Paul Chang | Reveal | |
Codiak Biosciences | $257.4M | Post-IPO | Codiak is a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company focused on pioneering the development of exosome-based therapeutics. | San Francisco, California, United States | Eric Lander | Reveal | |
Truepill | $255.4M | Series D | Truepill provides an API-connected healthcare infrastructure designed to revolutionize the patient experience. | Hayward, California, United States | Sid Viswanathan | Reveal | |
Effector Therapeutics | $242.5M | Post-IPO | Effector Therapeutics is an early-stage company focused on the discovery and development of small molecule cancer therapeutics. | San Diego, California, United States | Siegfried Reich | Reveal | |
Icosavax | $235.3M | Post-IPO | Icosavax is focused on developing safe and effective vaccines against infectious diseases that address important unmet medical needs. | Seattle, Washington, United States | Adam Simpson | Reveal | |
HilleVax | $235.0M | Post-IPO | HilleVax is a biopharmaceutical company that focuses on the development and commercialization of novel vaccines. | Boston, Massachusetts, United States | David Socks | Reveal | |
The Valens Company | $223.3M | Post-IPO | The Valens Company is a biotechnology company focused on extraction and the commercialization of cannabinoid-based consumer products. | Kelowna, British Columbia, Canada | Tyler Robson | Reveal | |
Reneo Pharmaceuticals | $220.0M | Post-IPO | Reneo Pharmaceuticals is an operator of a pharmaceutical company used to develop therapies for patients with orphan metabolic diseases. | San Diego, California, United States | Michael Grey | Reveal | |
Oncorus | $218.5M | Post-IPO | Oncorus is an immuno-oncology company developing oncolytic viruses to fight cancer. | Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States | Cyrus Mozayeni | Reveal | |
Tome Biosciences | $213.0M | Series A | Tome Biosciences is a biotechnology company that develops programmable gene insertion technology. | Watertown, Massachusetts, United States | Jonathan Gootenberg, Omar Abudayyeh | Reveal | |
Ikena Oncology | $209.0M | Post-IPO | Ikena Oncology develops differentiated therapies to target cancer growth and resistance, focusing on Hippo and RAS signaling pathways. | Boston, Massachusetts, United States | Karen McGovern | Reveal | |
Elevation Oncology | $197.5M | Post-IPO | Elevation Oncology is a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company focused on the development of precision medicines for patients. | New York, New York, United States | Shawn Leland | Reveal | |
Ambys Medicines | $187.0M | Series A | Ambys Medicines is a biotechnology company focused on discovering and developing regenerative and restorative therapies. | South San Francisco, California, United States | Holger Willenbring | Reveal | |
UpStream Care | $185.0M | Series B | UpStream Care is the ideal marketplace solution for medicine. | Greensboro, North Carolina, United States | Fergus Hoban | Reveal | |
Frequency Therapeutics | $180.3M | Post-IPO | Frequency Therapeutics develops small molecule drugs that activate progenitor cells within the body to restore healthy tissue. | Lexington, Massachusetts, United States | Chris Loose | Reveal | |
Vigil Neuroscience | $180.0M | Post-IPO | Vigil Neuroscience is a biotechnology company that develops novel therapeutics for neurodegenerative diseases. | Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States | Ivana Magovčević-Liebisch | Reveal | |
Beckley Psytech | $164.2M | Undisclosed | Beckley Psytech is a biotechnology company developing psychedelic-based medicines for mental health conditions. | Beckley, Oxfordshire, United Kingdom | Cosmo Feilding Mellen | Reveal | |
Just - Evotec Biologics | $162.6M | Grant | Designing innovative technologies focused on accelerating global access to biotherapeutics. | Seattle, Washington, United States | Dean K. Pettit | Reveal | |
Mindstrong Health | $160.2M | Grant | Mindstrong is a virtual mental health platform. | Menlo Park, California, United States | Paul Dagum | Reveal | |
Entourage Health | $156.2M | Post-IPO | Entourage Health is a Health Canada Licensed Producer under the Access to Cannabis for Medical Purposes Regulations (ACMPR). | Aylmer, Ontario, Canada | Bruce Dawson-Scully | Reveal | |
Tarveda Therapeutics | $148.4M | Venture | Tarveda Therapeutics is a developer of miniature drug conjugates designed for the treatment of patients with a wide range of solid tumors. | Watertown, Massachusetts, United States | Omid Farokhzad | Reveal | |
Imara | $144.8M | Post-IPO | Imara is provider of novel therapeutics for the people living with sickle cell disease and hemoglobinopathies. | Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States | James McArthur | Reveal | |
Amino | $135.0M | Venture | Amino is a data-driven healthcare guidance platform that helps companies and their employees navigate the complex US healthcare system. | San Francisco, California, United States | David Vivero, Maudie Shah, Roger Billerey-Mosier, Sumul Shah | Reveal | |
Aerami Therapeutics | $133.5M | Series B | Aerami Therapeutics focuses on developing novel inhaled therapies for the treatment of chronic diseases. | Durham, North Carolina, United States | John S. Patton | Reveal | |
Kintara Therapeutics | $132.8M | Grant | Kintara Therapeutics is engaged in developing and commercializing therapies for the treatment of cancer patients. | Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada | Dennis M. Brown | Reveal | |
Adaptive Phage Therapeutics | $131.7M | Series B | Adaptive Phage Therapeutics provides therapeutic services intended to treat multi-drug resistant pathogenic bacteria. | Bethesda, Maryland, United States | Greg Merril | Reveal | |
Hound Labs | $130.1M | Debt | Hound Labs has developed the first cannabis breath test that limits detection to the workday giving employers + employees a fair solution. | Oakland, California, United States | Jenny Lynn | Reveal | |
Eyebiotech | $130.0M | Series A | Eyebiotech is an ophthalmology biotechnology company that specializes in therapies for eye diseases. | New York, New York, United States | Anthony P. Adamis, David Guyer | Reveal | |
CannTrust | $127.8M | Post-IPO | CannTrust is a producer of medical cannabis. | Toronto, Ontario, Canada | Norman Paul | Reveal | |
Akoya Biosciences | $127.0M | Post-IPO | Akoya Biosciences is a spatial biology company offering solutions for high-parameter tissue analysis from biomarker discovery to validation. | Marlborough, Massachusetts, United States | Garry Nolan | Reveal | |
OncXerna Therapeutics | $126.5M | Venture | OncXerna Therapeutics offers precision medicine using an innovative RNA-based biomarker platform. | Waltham, Massachusetts, United States | Laura E. Benjamin | Reveal | |
Aristea Therapeutics | $117.6M | Series B | Aristea Therapeutics is a developer of novel therapies created for autoimmune diseases. | San Diego, California, United States | James Mackay | Reveal | |
Cricket Health | $111.1M | Series B | Cricket Health is a specialty kidney care provider of integrated nephrology and dialysis care. | San Francisco, California, United States | Arvind Rajan | Reveal | |
NowRx | $102.3M | Crowdfund | NowRx is a pharmacy and last-mile logistics company that provides same-day and same-hour prescription medication delivery. | Mountain View, California, United States | Cary Breese | Reveal | |
Odyssey Therapeutics | $101.6M | Series A | Odyssey Therapeutics is a computational immunology company that develops novel therapeutics for patients with autoimmune diseases. | San Francisco, California, United States | Kiran Singh | Reveal | |
Nvelop Therapeutics | $100.0M | Seed | Nvelop Therapeutics is a biotechnology company that developes genetic medicines for patients with severe genetic diseases. | Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States | J. Keith Joung | Reveal | |
AgeX Therapeutics | $99.8M | Post-IPO | AgeX is a biotechnology company that develops novel therapeutics for age-related degenerative diseases. | Alameda, California, United States | Michael D West | Reveal | |
Eden Health | $99.0M | Series C | Eden Health is a primary care and insurance navigation company for employers seeking to elevate the health and wellbeing of their employees. | New York, New York, United States | Matt McCambridge | Reveal | |
Satellos Bioscience | $97.7M | Post-IPO | Satellos Bioscience is a private regenerative medicine company developing novel therapeutics that stimulate or restore muscle regeneration. | Toronto, Ontario, Canada | Frank Gleeson | Reveal | |
54gene | $94.7M | Note | 54gene is a healthcare startup that offers a genetics testing platform. | Washington, District of Columbia, United States | Abasi Ene-Obong | Reveal | |
Glympse Bio | $93.3M | Venture | Glympse Bio is a biotechnology company that transforms disease detection and predict treatment response. | Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States | Gabe Kwong | Reveal | |
Clade Therapeutics | $87.0M | Series A | Clade Therapeutics discovers and delivers next-generation cell medicines to improve the lives of patients. | Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States | Chad Cowan | Reveal | |
Sense Biodetection | $81.5M | Series B | Sense Biodetection is a molecular diagnostics company . | Abingdon, Oxfordshire, United Kingdom | Harry lamble | Reveal | |
Spotlight Therapeutics | $80.7M | Series B | Spotlight Therapeutics is a biotechnology company that develops biologics targeted to specific cell populations in gene editing. | Hayward, California, United States | Alexander Marson | Reveal | |
Calyxt | $72.3M | Post-IPO | Calyxt is an agbiotech company that focuses on developing healthier crops. | Minnesota City, Minnesota, United States | Dan Voytas | Reveal | |
Palette Life Sciences | $70.0M | Debt | Palette Life Sciences is a medical device company that provides a wide range of products and services for patients. | Santa Barbara, California, United States | Arne Folke Brodin | Reveal | |
INNOVO by Atlantic Therapeutics | $69.2M | Venture | INNOVO by Atlantic Therapeutics is a medical technology firm that develops pelvic floor muscle strengthening and nerve stimulation products. | Galway, Galway, Ireland | — | Reveal | |
AllStripes | $67.1M | Series B | AllStripes is a healthcare technology company that accelerates drug development and research for the treatment of rare diseases. | San Francisco, California, United States | Nancy Yu | Reveal | |
Day Zero Diagnostics | $63.0M | Venture | The future of infectious disease diagnostics starts at Day Zero. | Boston, Massachusetts, United States | Doug Kwon, Dougal Maclaurin, Jong Lee, Melis Anahtar, Miriam Huntley | Reveal | |
CODA Biotherapeutics | $62.7M | Venture | CODA Biotherapeutics develops a chemogenetic platform designed to modulate neuronal activity. | South San Francisco, California, United States | Cyrus Mozayeni | Reveal | |
EIP Pharma | $59.6M | Grant | EIP Pharma is a clinical stage therapeutics company developing drugs to treat neurodegenerative diseases. | Boston, Massachusetts, United States | John Alam | Reveal | |
Sonnet BioTherapeutics | $59.2M | Post-IPO | Sonnet BioTherapeutics is a biotechnology company for innovating biologic drugs of the single or bispecific mechanism of action. | Princeton, New Jersey, United States | John K. Cini | Reveal | |
Spire Health | $58.1M | Venture | Spire Health is a digital healthcare startup that provides continuous respiratory monitoring and proactive feedback. | San Francisco, California, United States | Jonathan Palley | Reveal | |
BetterVet | $57.9M | Venture | BetterVet is a veterinary startup that provides home visits and telehealth services for needs. | Boston, Massachusetts, United States | Carolina Goncebat, John de Jong | Reveal | |
Pathology Watch | $56.7M | Note | Pathology Watch delivers an intuitive and easy-to-implement digital pathology solution for dermatologists. | Murray, Utah, United States | Daniel Lambert | Reveal | |
Ribbon Health | $53.8M | Series B | Ribbon Health is a predictive analytics and data platform for the healthcare industry. | New York, New York, United States | Nate Fox | Reveal | |
Clip Health | $53.7M | Undisclosed | Clip Health is a health-tech firm that designed, manufactured, and distributed products for decentralized health testing. | Fremont, California, United States | Andrew Paterson | Reveal | |
VEDA Data Solutions | $52.2M | Series B | VEDA is an AI and machine learning platform to save healthcare and administrative costs. | Madison, Wisconsin, United States | Bob Lindner | Reveal | |
Deep 6 AI | $50.2M | Undisclosed | Deep 6 AI is a research software that connects all research stakeholders in an AI-powered, real-time ecosystem | Pasadena, California, United States | Wout Brusselaers | Reveal | |
XinThera | $50.0M | Series B | XinThera is a drug discovery company focused on building small molecule oncology and immunology pipeline. | San Diego, California, United States | Gene Hung | Reveal | |
Inbound Health | $50.0M | Series B | Inbound Health is a company that enables health systems and health plans to offer hospital-at-home and skilled nursing-at-home programs. | Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States | Dave Kerwar, Julia Crist | Reveal | |
Cardionomic | $49.8M | Debt | Cardionomic is a medical device developer that treats reduced cardiac output. | Forest Lake, Minnesota, United States | Steve Goedeke | Reveal | |
Blue Note Therapeutics | $46.9M | Series A | Blue Note Therapeutics is a prescription digital therapeutics company that merges deep scientific and clinical expertise. | San Francisco, California, United States | Elan Tye | Reveal | |
Alucent Biomedical | $46.6M | Venture | Alucent Biomedical is a biomedical company that develops a combination drug-device therapy for the treatment of vascular diseases. | Salt Lake City, Utah, United States | Ron Utecht | Reveal | |
Ostro | $45.0M | Corporate | Ostro is a health platform that personalized engagement solutions for life sciences. | Miami, Florida, United States | Ahmed Elsayyad | Reveal | |
Proof Diagnostics | $45.0M | Series A | Proof Diagnostics is a health technology company that develops a diagnostic test for the detection of coronavirus disease infection. | Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States | Feng Zhang | Reveal | |
OncoVerity | $44.0M | Series A | OncoVerity focuses on optimizing and advancing the development of cusatuzumab, a novel anti-CD70 antibody. | Aurora, Colorado, United States | — | Reveal |
+193 more closed startups
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Frequently Asked Questions
How many healthcare startups have failed?
The VCbacked Startup Graveyard currently tracks 293 venture-backed healthcare startups that have shut down, collectively raising $28.2B before closing. That is roughly 13 percent of all closed companies in the database, which is based on the last five years of fundraising data.
What is the biggest healthcare startup failure?
By total capital raised, the largest healthcare failure in the database is Physicians Realty Trust, which raised $2.3B before shutting down.
Why do healthcare startups fail?
Healthcare startups fight regulation, reimbursement cycles, and long enterprise sales on top of the normal startup death modes. Many of the graveyard entries here raised significant capital before the unit economics of care delivery caught up with them. Across the dataset, the most common last round before shutdown in healthcare was Other, and the largest cohort of failures last raised in 2022.
Can I contact founders of failed healthcare startups?
Founder names are shown free on this page for every closed healthcare company. VCbacked paid plans reveal verified founder contact details where available and unlock CSV export.