Next Billion-Dollar Startup Equip has raised $110 million to treat anorexia and other eating disorders.

ristina saffron She was first diagnosed with anorexia at age 10. She went through various hospital programs, only to return home and fall back into the same destructive behaviors. “I didn’t know how to take care of myself, and neither did my family,” Saffran said. ForbesDoctors told her parents there was little hope for recovery, but they could send her across the country to an inpatient facility. “It’s awful to tell a 13-year-old that you’re going to live with this forever,” she said.

In the post-COVID world, VCs say it’s not as easy to get excited about investing in digital health. Deal activity in healthcare IT was relatively flat in Q1 2024 at 74 total deals, valued at about $1 billion total, up only 3% from the year-ago quarter, according to PitchBook data. Still, promising startups have grabbed investors’ attention this year. TechCrunch spoke with about a dozen healthcare VCs about the companies they think have the most promising future. While recently formed AI-driven startups that are solving staggering administrative challenges in the U.S. healthcare system dominated their recommendations, they also mentioned several slightly older, non-AI-focused businesses.We narrowed their suggestions to the list of names that more than one VC mentioned, which came in at an even 10 companies. VCs discussed with us the companies that were both in their portfolios and not.AbridgeWhat it does: Uses AI to automate medical records based on conversations between doctors and patients.Founded in 2018 by Shiv Rao, a practicing cardiologist, Abridge is an early entrant into the medical note-taking space and one that has secured integration with the all-powerful Epic Systems health records software. Why it’s promising: The Pittsburgh-based startup generates excitement among investors and hospital systems eager to free up physicians’ time spent on note-taking