SVB, the financial partner of Silicon Valley Bank, released its annual Healthcare Investments and Exits Report, confirming that investing in healthcare is still strong, with venture capital funds raising nearly $22bn, marking 2022 as the second largest fundraising year on record. 

The report analyzes and predicts trends for venture capital investing, fundraising and exits that reflect the biopharma, medical device, diagnostics/tools and healthtech sectors in the US and Europe. 

Fundraising activity slowed in the second half of 2022, although there was still a record $50bn of capital raised since 2021. While total healthcare company investment slowed in 2022, with successive declines each quarter in both new deals and dollars, it was still the second largest year in healthcare investment on record. 

Notably, in US venture fundraising, traditional tech firms allocated more funds to healthcare. In 2022, there were 70 tech-focused funds that closed with a 5%-15% allocation to healthcare, mostly for healthtech, an increase from 54 firms in 2021. 

Looking to this year, however, SVB expects venture healthcare fundraising to decline to about $15bn as most firms recently raised new funds and the pace of investment to be slower than 2021. SVB also expects the pace of deals to continue to be slower than 2021, leading to longer time between new fundraises.