The healthcare investor map: where digital health and medtech investors are

• 7,156 US healthcare-focused startup investors in our database.
• 2,215 (32%) are outside CA, NY and MA.
• Highest healthcare share: Missouri, Tennessee, Ohio.
• 2,734 list pre-seed; median check $150K to $4M.
• Pair a healthcare specialist with a local generalist.

Key findings

• 7,156 US startup investors in our database list healthcare or digital health as a focus, 33% of the 21,687 US startup investors who list any sector.
• 2,215 of the 6,853 with a known state (32%) are based outside California, New York and Massachusetts.
• Healthcare is a bigger slice of the local investor base in several Midwest and Southern states than on the coasts: 50% of sector-tagged investors in Missouri, 49% in Tennessee and 46% in Ohio, against 31% in California.
• 2,734 healthcare investors list pre-seed and 6,340 list seed.
• The median healthcare investor with a stated check lists $150K to $4M.

Why a map matters for healthcare founders

Healthcare companies sell into hospitals, payers, employers and clinics, and those buyers are everywhere, not just on the coasts. Healthcare investors often want board-level access to those buyers, which makes geography matter more than in software. A digital health founder in Columbus or Nashville may find that the investors who understand their health system customers are a short drive away. This map shows where the 7,156 healthcare-focused investors in the Zalarma investor database, as of 2026-11-01 are based.

Healthcare investors by state

Share is healthcare investors as a percentage of all startup investors in that state who list at least one sector.

Where healthcare is the local specialty

In absolute numbers, California, New York and Massachusetts lead. As a share of the local investor base, the picture flips. Among states with at least 100 sector-tagged startup investors, healthcare is the focus of nearly half of investors in Missouri and Tennessee, and 46% in Ohio. Strong health systems, universities and medical-device clusters tend to produce investors who know the sector.

Healthcare investors by metro

Outside the coastal hubs, Chicago (215), Austin (156), Seattle (147) and Miami (130) have the deepest benches, with Nashville (51) notable for a metro its size.

Who the healthcare investors are

Venture firms and partners make up most of the list (5,649), followed by angels (1,638). Corporate VCs (108) and accelerators (107) are smaller groups but can bring distribution and pilots. Healthcare investors often list adjacent sectors too: 3,170 also list biotech or life sciences, 3,983 list B2B software and 3,807 list consumer.

Stages and check sizes

• Pre-seed: 2,734 investors. Seed: 6,340. Series A: 4,304. Series B and later: 2,361.
• Check bands (by minimum, 6,638 with a stated check): under $50K 740; $50K–$250K 2,987; $250K–$1M 1,468; $1M+ 1,443.

Firms with the most healthcare investors outside CA, NY and MA

These firms have the most healthcare-focused investor records based outside the three big states in our data (records per firm in brackets): VentureSouth (25), Thompson Street Capital Partners (19), Plexus Capital, LLC (15), Moving Capital (12), Monroe Capital LLC (10), S3 Ventures (10), Golden Seeds (10). Others with several records include Wolfpack Investor Network, Alliance of Angels, Baird Capital, Sandbox Industries, Hatteras Venture Partners. Angel networks such as VentureSouth and Golden Seeds pool many individual investors, which is why they rank high.

What to do with this

1. Start with your state's share, not its size. A state where healthcare is a third of the investor base will understand reimbursement and sales cycles.
2. Pair a healthcare specialist with a local generalist. The specialist validates the market; the local investor helps with hiring and customers.
3. Use health systems as a warm path. Clinical champions and innovation teams often know the local healthcare angels.
4. Check the stage fit. 38% of healthcare investors list pre-seed; filter for them if you are pre-revenue.

See the full healthcare investor list, or the state cuts for Texas and biotech.

Methods note

Data: Zalarma investor database, as of 2026-11-01. A healthcare investor is a US startup-investor record whose focus areas, industry or sector fields mention healthcare, digital health, healthtech, medtech or medical. One record can list several sectors. Shares use as the base the startup-investor records in each state that list at least one sector, so states where many records list no sector are not penalized. States are shown when they have 10 or more healthcare investors; share comparisons use states with at least 100 sector-tagged investors. Firm counts are the number of investor records tied to that firm. Counts under 10 are suppressed. These are records in our database, not a census of every healthcare investor.