Extra Crunch Tuesday: Leading VCs discuss how COVID-19 has impacted the world of digital health

Extra Crunch Newsletter

Tuesday, March 31, 2020 • By Walter Thompson

Welcome to Extra Crunch Tuesday In our latest Extra Crunch VC survey, we followed up with six top investors who responded to our December 2019 digital health survey to get their take on the current moment: Annie Case, Kleiner Perkins Kristin Baker Spohn, CRV Deena Shakir, Lux Capital Jennifer Hartt, Ben Franklin Technology Partners John Prendergass, Ben Franklin Technology Partners Bill Liao, SOSV Startups innovating in telemedicine, diagnostic testing and mental health services are rising to the challenge, but “the COVID-19 pandemic is emerging as a watershed moment for the sector,” says Shakir. Many digital health founders “are feeling energized and privileged to be in a position to take action and support the response,” adds Baker Spohn. Even as these startups seize opportunities, disruptions in funding have led some to take radical steps to conserve cash as they rush new products to market. To get a sense of how the novel coronavirus is reshaping the digital health investing landscape, read this morning’s survey. Also: read recaps of recent Zoom calls we’ve hosted with immigration attorney Sophie Alcorn and betaworks founder and CEO John Borthwick and partner Matt Hartman, or listen to the conversations in full. We’re doing more of these midday chats with notable names in tech, so watch this space for an invitation to join the conversation. Thanks for reading,   Walter Thompson Senior Editor, TechCrunch @yourprotagonist

Venture capital isn't escaping the downward spiral of the global economy Image Credits: Mj Breiva/EyeEm / Getty Images “Because venture data is famously — and annoyingly — laggy,” we may not have a full picture of Q1 2020 venture results for months. Alex Wilhelm is an impatient fellow, so he used this morning’s column to make a deep dive into figures for U.S. equity-only rounds so far this year, and the general direction is “down and to the right.” Read more

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Leading VCs discuss how COVID-19 has impacted the world of digital health Image Credits: TEK IMAGE/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY / Getty Images How is COVID-19 impacting digital health startups, and how can these companies best respond to the COVID-19 pandemic? Arman Tabatabai interviewed six top investors to get their insights regarding new opportunities for founders in healthcare and how health tech investing as a whole has changed in recent weeks. Read more

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Attorney Sophie Alcorn answers readers' immigration questions If you missed our Zoom conference call with Silicon Valley attorney Sophie Alcorn, we talked about how COVID-19 is impacting immigration law, recent changes to H-1B visas and other top-of-mind issues for founders who are building teams. Read more

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Attract, engage and retain employees in the new remote-work era Image Credits: C.J. Burton / Getty Images Vacant positions can cost companies as much as $680/day, and given the rapid shift to remote work in recent weeks, recruiting just got a lot harder. Employers who integrate virtual hiring technologies into their continuity plans are more resilient; here are four steps to help make that happen inside your organization. Read more

This Week in Apps: Apple launches a COVID-19 app, the outbreak's impact on social and video apps and more Data suggests that the COVID-19 pandemic is changing our relationship to our smartphones: social video apps are exploding, Facebook is seeing record usage and Disney+ saw 5M downloads on day one of its European launch. Read more

The second wave of unicorn layoffs is brutal Image Credits: Bryce Durbin/TechCrunch Events are moving quickly, which is why Alex Wilhelm took a moment to unpack the first wave of unicorn layoffs at Zume, Oyo and Uber to see how it compares to recent reductions in staff at ZipRecruiter, Bird and TripActions. Read more

Amid shift to remote work, application performance monitoring is IT's big moment Image Credits: CasarsaGuru / Getty Images IT departments are much like the CIA: you’re much more likely to hear about their failures than their successes. Now that remote workers are putting unheard-of strain on systems that support services like videoconferencing, e-commerce and online learning, application performance monitoring (APM) tools are the star of the show. Read more

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