Recent statistics have shown that the health technology industry has outperformed other UK sectors for first quarter (Q1) investment.
New research from HSBC Innovation Banking and Dealroom found that startups pulled in $1.8 billion in venture capital investment. If you’re looking at investment planning in Cheshire, health tech and life sciences recorded their second strongest quarter on record in the first months of 2025.
This means that health tech is ahead of other sectors such as fintech and enterprise software, which raised over $724 million over the same period, followed by energy ($372.5 million) and media ($240.5 million). Just under half of all venture capital investment in the health sector was in AI-powered startups, an indicator of the technology’s increasing influence on innovation in healthcare.
Overall, around $4.2 billion was raised by UK innovation businesses in the first quarter of 2025. This represented an 8% increase on the same period in 2024, and was the highest Q1 figure since 2022. The CEO of HSBC Innovation Banking UK, Simon Bumfrey, described the boom in UK health tech as ‘exciting’ and said that AI innovations were transforming the sector and creating new possibilities. As Europe’s ‘innovation powerhouse’, he said the UK is well placed to keep attracting new investment.
Indeed, the UK is now ahead of its European competitors in a number of key performance areas, such as venture capital investment, the overall number of unicorn companies, now 185, and total enterprise value. In the first quarter of 2025, it raised more venture capital than Germany, France and Spain combined.
