Editor's Note
The Wearables Reset
The only place to start this week is with Google's launch of the Fitbit Air. It has the potential to shift the whole wearables market.
Google has just bulldozed a fragmented and tired wearables market by introducing a low cost fitness strap priced at $99, but more importantly opening up Google Health to data from other wearables like Apple Watch, Oura and Garmin.
Whoop rushed to the defence with Will Ahmed releasing a hurried and somewhat lukewarm announcement with exciting new features like… HR algorithm improvements.
People are already tired of over optimising and there is real wearable fatigue. Consolidation feels inevitable, and a low cost device and free platform might be exactly what the market is asking for.
Apple and Google have made their moves in health, and with the moat closing, is now the time for Meta to acquire Whoop?
Industry News
Doctolib acquires Medicus and commits £100m to UK primary care
French healthtech Doctolib has acquired London-based Medicus, the startup behind the first new GP clinical software system approved by the NHS in 25 years. As part of the deal, Doctolib has committed to invest over £100m in the UK, hire 150 people in London and open a dedicated R&D centre for primary care. (techfundingnews.com)
Why it matters. UK GPs have been stuck with the same two software providers for 25 years, and most patients have felt it through clunky booking systems, slow records access and admin that takes up time doctors could spend with people. Medicus is the first new option to break through, and Doctolib's money behind it means the tools your GP uses could actually start to feel modern.
Google launches the screenless Fitbit Air at $99
Google has launched the Fitbit Air, a screenless $99 fitness tracker pitched directly against Whoop and Oura. Just as significant, Google has opened up its Google Health app to pull in data from Apple Watch, Oura, Garmin and others, turning it into a single free home for your health data no matter what device you wear. (wired.com)
Why it matters. For anyone tracking their health, this could mean cheaper hardware, no monthly subscription, and one place to see everything instead of jumping between four apps. For the wearables companies charging £40+ a month, the question becomes: what do you uniquely offer that a free Google app pulling in all the same data can't?
Neurable opens its BCI tech for licensing into consumer wearables
Boston-based Neurable has switched to a licensing platform model, allowing third-party device manufacturers to embed its non-invasive brain-computer interface into devices such as headphones, glasses, hats and headbands. It is a smart distribution play that could scale adoption of the tech much faster. (techcrunch.com)
Why it matters. Instead of building its own consumer device, Neurable is selling its brain-reading technology as a component that any wearables company can build into their own product. For consumers, this means the headphones, glasses and headbands you already wear could give you insights about your focus levels, sleep quality and recovery.
Hims & Hers launches Labs AI, its first AI care agent
Hims & Hers has launched Labs AI, an AI care agent embedded in its platform that interprets biomarker results across more than 130 lab tests. The agent combines frontier language models with the company's in-house clinical knowledge base, and escalates to a licensed clinician when results suggest medical guidance is needed. (news.hims.com)
Why it matters. Labs AI is built on top of Hims's own clinical data and the millions of patient interactions they have already had, which means the guidance it gives you is grounded in real medicine. That depth of context is the edge over the consumer health AI tools that are essentially chatbots in a wellness wrapper.
Investment Updates
Maurice & Nora, €1m seed (tech.eu) - Antwerp-based platform connecting families and seniors with screened students for non-medical home care, now active across Flanders and Brussels.
Asterix Health, £2.1m pre-seed (techfundingnews.com) - London startup hiring GMC-registered GPs abroad to handle telephone consultations and clinical admin for NHS practices, led by Triple Point.
SquareMind, $18m (therobotreport.com) - Paris-based robotics company commercialising Swan, the first robot to capture full-body dermoscopic skin imaging, led by Fred Moll's Sonder Capital.
Tava Health, $40m Series C (finsmes.com) - Salt Lake City mental health platform launching three new products for clinicians, employers and health plans, led by Centana Growth Partners.
XCaliber Health, $6.5m seed (techfundingnews.com) - Andover, Massachusetts agentic operating system replacing manual healthcare admin workflows with autonomous execution, led by ManchesterStory.
The Health Stack Podcast
Episode #05 | Full Episode
Richard Carter, CTO of Proximie
A look inside how Proximie is using telepresence, AI and live video to let surgeons virtually scrub in to operations anywhere in the world.
Roles Worth Knowing About
Product Manager - Tortus London | Hybrid
Tortus is building clinical AI for healthcare and is already live across a large proportion of UK GP surgeries, London Ambulance and other NHS organisations. The role sits in the Partnerships team, owning the product roadmap that makes integrating Tortus's clinical AI SDK effortless for partners.
Senior Product Manager, AI & Data Products - Surgo Health London | Hybrid
Surgo Health is a Public Benefit Corporation building an AI-powered sociobehavioural data platform that decodes the beliefs, barriers and behaviours driving health outcomes. The role owns the strategy and roadmap for the AI and data products powering Surgo's behavioural intelligence platforms, with deep partnership across engineering and data science.
Data Engineer (Healthcare Data) - Pangaea Data London
Pangaea Data is the team behind PALLUX, an AI platform configured on clinical guidelines to find untreated and under-treated patients with hard-to-diagnose conditions, with advisors including Lord David Prior and Andy Palmer. The Data Engineer role leads development of reliable, scalable and secure data solutions, with strong experience in healthcare data standards like FHIR and OMOP.
Clinical Product Manager - Healthtech-1 London (Stratford)
Healthtech-1 automates repetitive NHS admin tasks like new patient registrations and is now live in over 1,400 GP practices from Durham to Devon. The Clinical Product Manager role brings a clinical lens to product decisions, shaping the roadmap for the most-used automation tool in NHS primary care.
Founding Backend Engineer - Asterix Health London
Asterix Health has just raised £2.1m to scale its remote GP workforce platform across NHS primary care, with backing from Triple Point and Entrepreneurs First. The Founding Backend Engineer joins a small product team building DoctorOS, the platform integrating with NHS systems like EMIS and SystmOne to support practices serving 250,000 patients.
That's it for Issue #10.
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