EdTech vs HealthTech in 2020

Asia leads Digital Education Investment. North America leads Digital Health. Globally over $60B of VC was invested in these two incredible digital engines of economic and social wellbeing in 2020. An incredibly challenging year.

Education Intelligence Unit

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November 19, 2020

Nearly 20% of Global GDP is spent on Education and Healthcare. The pandemic marks a massive inflection point for these two precious and grossly under-appreciated engines of economic and social wellbeing. Digital Transformation dominates the agenda of almost every senior learning and wellbeing leader globally.

Representing $15T of annual global spend, Education and Healthcare are incredible engines of economic and social wellbeing. The COVID pandemic has been a tragic, once in a lifetime forcing function for innovation. In 2020, $60B+ of venture capital has been invested in digital learning and digital health startups.

Globally, HealthTech attracted just under 3x the venture capital investment that EdTech secured in 2020. However, this picture varies significantly in different regions of the world. For every $10 that North American venture capital invests in HealthTech, it invests less than $1.00 of venture capital in EdTech. Asia, on the other hand, invests just a little less into HealthTech than it does into EdTech.

From a geographic share of global investment perspective, the split is nearly a mirror image. Asia’s proportional investment in Global EdTech is about the same as North America’s share in Global HealthTech and vice versa.

Global Capital vs Education and Health Flows

Representing $15T of annual global spend, Education and Healthcare are incredible economic and social wellbeing engines. That’s almost 20% of Global GDP. Over the decades, these two predominately public sectors have started to turn to public-private partnerships and capital markets to fund and fuel growth and innovation. Beginning with social infrastructure, then services and now digital infrastructure, institutions and companies of all kinds are collaborating to build a better future.

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70 Education & Health Tech Unicorns

Together EdTech and HealthTech have nearly 70 Unicorns. We maintain a complete list of all 19 EdTech Unicorns and 50 HealthTech Unicorns that are updated monthly as mega-funding pours into the space. These two sectors, once considered sleepy and fragmented, are increasingly thought of by governments and investors alike as fundamental to powering a global economy that will thrive through the 21st century.

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Global Impact and SDG Indices

HolonIQ’s Global Impact and SDG Indices are the world’s leading research-grade benchmarks to track the performance of positive impact companies around the world. Combining deep expertise in global impact thematics, capital markets and technology, HolonIQ’s Global Impact and SDG Indices provide independent and unbiased benchmarks for governments, investors and companies around the world seeking to create sustainable and positive impact.

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