HealthHero continues acquisition strategy to win European telemedicine consolidation

The news

Telemedicine company HealthHero announced that it has acquired the French player Qare for an undisclosed sum. In SIFTED, CEO Ranjan Singh described the deal as "the most significant telehealth acquisition in Europe in recent times, and firmly secures HealthHero's dominance in the growing telehealth sector." 

The acquisition strengthens HealthHero's telehealth position in Europe, which now covers 22 million people, with plans to provide just under three million consultations in 2021. With the addition of Qare, HealthHero claims it now has the "most diverse" offering across markets and services. These include D2C, B2B and B2G offerings in the UK (Doctorlink), Germany (Fernarzt), Ireland (MyClinic) and France (Qare). HealthHero's offerings include clinical services such as GP support, prescription services, mental health consultations and musculoskeletal specialists.

Our perspective

As most platform markets, telemedicine seems to be heading for consolidation. HealthHero CEO Ranjan Singh makes clear that he wants to come out of this race a winner: "We would either have to go big and consolidate companies ourselves or be consolidated."

In contrast to its two major European competitors Kry (Sweden) and Babylon Health (UK), HealthHero seems to follow a similar approach as Delivery Hero in the food delivery market: buying local players instead of conquering new markets from the ground up. This approach enables HealthHero to draw on deep local market knowledge and still leverage economies of scale in technology across markets. 

New players will need to bring massive competitive advantages, such as exclusive access to doctors or patients, to compete with the leading platforms. In our view, opportunities for new market participants in the consolidating telemedicine market arise primarily in vertical platforms for dedicated indication areas and infrastructure for doctors working increasingly remotely.

What it means for MedTech companies

The medical technology industry should ask itself what the equipment for virtual practices looks like in order to benefit from the telemedicine trend.