Michael T. Esquivel

Esquivel provides strategic counseling to companies in the digital health and technology sectors. In part due to the rapid acceleration of innovation in and adoption of digital health in response to the pandemic, 2020 ended up being a record year. That acceleration has continued into 2021 and shows no signs of slowing, he said.

According to incubator and digital health venture fund Rock Health, for which Esquivel serves as pro bono counsel, the first half of 2021 saw $14.7 billion invested in digital health companies, surpassing the total for the entirety of 2020.

“It’s been an incredibly exciting year in digital health in 2021. We’re starting to see all three channels of corporate activity revving at 10,000 RPMs – the venture channel, M&A channel, and capital markets channel are all wide open,” Esquivel said.

“On the venture side, we’ve seen some really exciting transactions in the past year validating that the tech and venture communities are doubling and tripling down in some cases in digital health,” he said.

As examples, he cited helping virtual chronic care platform Vida Health in its $110 million Series D financing in May, and automated revenue cycle management company AKASA in its $60 million Series B funding round in March.

On the M&A side, Esquivel pointed out two recent deals that garnered attention.

He represented OODA Health, a technology company focused on improving the health care administrative experience, in its agreement to be acquired by Cedar, a health care financial technology platform, for $425 million in May.

He also advised telemedicine company PlushCare in its acquisition by Accolade in April, in a transaction valued at up to $450 million. Together, the companies intend to provide more seamless consumer access to care both virtually and in person.

“I’m proud to say those [OODA and PlushCare] are two long-time clients of mine, two terrific examples of M&A activity. In one case it was a publicly traded digital health company, Accolade, buying a digital health target. In the other, it was a unicorn-valuation, private health-care tech company buying another digital health tech tool,” Esquivel said. “So M&A is wide open and really exciting.”

The capital markets have seen a series of IPOs and SPAC transactions, led by the continued adoption of digital health tools, Esquivel said.

“With each passing day, week and month, consumer-patient users’ comfort and overall engagement with these tools are only increasing,” he said. “I remain incredibly bullish for the balance of this year, heading into 2022 with a lot of momentum.”

-- Jennifer Chung Klam