5 things to know about AI-toting healthcare ‘unicorns’

You might be a unicorn if you’re a privately held startup, you’re backed by venture capital and you’re valued at more than $1 billion. Add in high growth potential, uniquely innovative moves and a business plan for disrupting your industry—and you’re definitely a unicorn.  

Why do investors equate these companies with beautiful, mythical beasts? Because startups with such dazzling attributes are—or were—rarely seen.

These days they’re less uncommon than in the past. But they’re still worth watching, not least within healthcare. And almost all have AI as an ace in their tech deck.  

In a report posted May 14, analysts with the venture capital firm SignalFire list seven observations they’ve made while watching healthcare unicorns. Here are their top five. 

1. Unicorns are hard to build. 

Healthtech unicorns are even harder, slowed for years by complex regulation, tech adoption barriers and fragmented buyers, the analysts write. “But that’s changing quickly. For the first time, there’s a convergence of tailwinds: Healthtech has talent, tech and timing on its side.” More:

‘Today there are more than 1,000 unicorns worldwide. Yet healthcare makes up just 8% of all unicorns, despite being a $5 trillion market that drives nearly 20% of U.S. GDP. It’s not for lack of market size—it’s because Healthtech is late to the party.’

2. Healthcare is finally ready for AI at scale. 

Structural complexity, slow sales cycles, fragmented stakeholders and strict regulations have “made it nearly impossible for healthcare startups to move fast or scale efficiently,” the report authors point out. “In a system built for caution over iteration, tech founders often stayed away, and incumbents stayed entrenched. Until now.”

‘Healthcare is leapfrogging. Just as some emerging markets skipped landlines and went straight to mobile, we believe healthcare is about to jump into an AI-powered future.’

3. IPOs are cold. M&A is hot. 

The traditional healthtech initial public offering playbook is “showing cracks,” SignalFire notes. Since 2000, the firm reports, 85 healthtech unicorns have exited. Of the top 25 publicly traded companies that exited via IPO as of February 2025, only six are still trading publicly today. As for the rest:  

‘10 of these companies (including Babylon and Pear Therapeutics) have been delisted. 14 have been taken private, with major deals like Towerbrook’s $8.9 billion buyout of R1 RCM, and CVS Health’s $8 billion acquisition of Signify Health.’

4. Healthtech and pharmatech have some new power centers. 

Healthcare innovation used to cluster around legacy strongholds like Boston and San Diego, SignalFire shows before adding: “[O]ur data shows a clear geographic rebalancing. Founders are increasingly choosing cities with better access to machine learning talent, startup capital and engineering culture over proximity to hospitals or research institutions.” 

“San Francisco leads with five times more healthtech unicorn founders than Boston,” the analysts write. “New York City isn’t far behind, boasting three times more founders than Boston. Boston still punches above its weight, with 50% more founders than Los Angeles—but its dominance has clearly diminished.”

‘Meanwhile new healthtech hubs are rising. Look to Miami, Salt Lake City and Washington DC, not to mention Seattle, Chicago and Los Angeles.’ 

5. Healthtech unicorn founders are seasoned operators. 

“The path to $1 billion in healthcare rarely starts in a dorm room,” SignalFire states. “This industry bets on experienced leaders with operational know-how, stakeholder trust and long-term relationships.”

More than half the founders who made it onto SignalFire’s radar, 54.5%, are healthcare insiders—veterans of clinical settings, healthcare IT, biopharma, medtech or payer-provider systems. “They know the pain points firsthand and build with domain depth,” the authors write. 

‘Experience alone isn’t the new edge. Execution is. In fact, 45.5% had no healthcare background before founding, bringing fresh playbooks from SaaS, fintech and enterprise software into a sector overdue for disruption.’

To the latter point SignalFire adds that today’s strongest founding teams combine tech-native talent with healthcare insiders who know how to navigate the slow, messy complexity of the U.S. healthcare system.

SignalFire has posted the report in full for free.

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