4PM Ventures

12/06/2026

This Friday’s story kicks off now.

We continue our Friday series where we review and announce studies that we find interesting and that we recommend investors and founders pay attention to. Today, we will be providing an overview of the report “Global tech report 2026: healthcare” by KPMG.

Investment levels have risen dramatically. 40% of healthcare organizations are committing between $50 million and $100 million per year to digital technologies. In countries such as Australia, investment is growing at approximately 25% annually. Despite this financial commitment, return on investment remains modest. 57% of executives report ROI at or below breakeven. Only 30% exceed their initial investment, though most achieve breakeven after roughly 12 months.

AI adoption has moved from experimentation toward enterprise scale. 66% of healthcare executives report actively deploying AI use cases, a significant increase from 32% one year ago. 76% expect to be deploying AI at scale within the next 12 months, the highest percentage of any sector surveyed. 86% are embedding AI into workflows, services, and value streams. Healthcare leaders report that AI and intelligent technologies contribute 31% to 40% of total digital value gained.

However, several obstacles prevent faster progress. The most significant challenge cited by 42% of respondents is weak governance and limited expertise, which leads to fragmented decision making and slow ex*****on. Cybersecurity is the top concern, followed by unreliable data and hallucinations from AI systems. Regulatory compliance and data sovereignty rules add further complexity, particularly in Europe and the Middle East. 41% of healthcare leaders plan to increase cybersecurity spending by more than 10% in the coming year, putting security ahead of AI and data analytics in terms of investment priority.

Data management remains a fundamental weakness. Healthcare accounts for approximately one seventh of all data generated globally, yet only a tiny fraction is actively used. Executives rated data analytics as relatively poor in terms of full optimization. The top data related priorities are data powered forecasting, better data accessibility across the enterprise, and data security. 69% of executives agree that traditional KPIs are not sufficient for tracking AI performance.

Our Venture Builder is looking for projects in the digital health market and is ready to help founders develop them. If you have such a project, please send your investment deck to us [email protected]

09/06/2026

Are you attending Bio:Cap Europe 2026 in Berlin? Let's meet.

The future of healthcare innovation is being shaped at the intersection of Life Sciences, AI, entrepreneurship, and investment.

This week, 4PM Ventures will be attending Bio:Cap Europe 2026 (June 9–11, Berlin) — an international conference bringing together researchers, startups, investors, healthcare leaders, and industry experts. The event is organized in collaboration with Charité and Hasso Plattner Institute.

Our Partner, Дмитрий Фадин Dmitry Fadin, will be attending throughout all three days of the conference.

If you would like to:

🔹 Learn more about 4PM Ventures and our activities;
🔹 Discuss investment opportunities in 4PM Ventures;
🔹 Explore collaboration opportunities around our portfolio companies and venture-building initiatives;
🔹 Discuss healthcare, biotech, medtech, AI, and life sciences innovation;
🔹 Exchange views on venture builders, innovation ecosystems, University 3.0, Clinic 3.0, and research commercialization;

—we would be delighted to meet you in Berlin.

At 4PM Ventures, we believe that breakthrough innovation happens when researchers, entrepreneurs, healthcare institutions, investors, and corporations work together within strong innovation ecosystems.

📩 Feel free to contact Dmitry Fadin directly or send us a message to arrange a meeting.

Looking forward to meaningful conversations and new partnerships at Bio:Cap Europe 2026.

05/06/2026

Friday is here, and so is your favorite series!

We continue our Friday series where we review and announce studies that we find interesting and that we recommend investors and founders pay attention to. Today, we will be providing an overview of the paper "Building people‑centred digital health systems" by OECD.

On one hand, electronic medical records have become the norm across most developed countries. In thirteen out of seventeen OECD nations, at least 95% of primary care practices use electronic records, and on average 93% of practices have those records available during a patient’s consultation. Yet from the patient’s perspective, the picture looks completely different. Only 18% of patients on average are aware that they can actually access their own health records online through their primary care provider.

The consequences of this disconnect go far beyond inconvenience. When patients cannot access their own records, or when different parts of the health system cannot share information seamlessly, patients are forced to repeat their medical history, current medications, and allergies to multiple providers. The PaRIS data show that this repetition has a profoundly negative effect on key aspects of patient experience. Compared to patients who did not have to repeat information, those who did reported trust in the healthcare system that was on average 15% points lower.

For example, Swiss primary care practices routinely use electronic health records for clinical work, yet only about 1.4% of the population has opened a patient‑accessible electronic record. This is because the national Electronic Patient Record is a separate, patient‑controlled system that requires people to actively open and manage their own file, and healthcare professionals must upload documents manually. The two systems do not speak to each other. As a result, even though digital tools exist on the provider side, patients remain largely unaware or unable to use their own data. Switzerland has recognised this failure and decided to develop a completely new system centred on the patient’s health trajectory.

A similar pattern appears in other countries, though for different reasons. In some places, patient access is organised through national portal solutions rather than through individual practices, which the PaRIS survey may underestimate. In other countries, clinicians worry that patients will misunderstand medical information, or technical obstacles such as complicated registration processes and limited interoperability block effective access. But the report is clear that when patients do gain access, the benefits are substantial. Patients who can view their records feel better prepared for medical visits, report more productive communication with clinicians, and are better able to participate in decisions about their treatment.

The underlying problem in most cases is a lack of true interoperability. Without it, a patient discharged from hospital with new medications may arrive at their primary care doctor’s office only to find that no discharge summary has been transmitted. The patient then becomes the data carrier, forced to reconstruct events from memory. This is not only frustrating but also risky. The report notes that misdiagnosis, underdiagnosis and overdiagnosis together are estimated to cost 17.5% of total healthcare expenditure in a typical OECD country, or 1.8% of GDP. Many of these diagnostic failures are linked to fragmented information.

Our Venture Builder is looking for projects in the digital health market and is ready to help founders develop them. If you have such a project, please send your investment deck to us [email protected]

29/05/2026

Keeping the Friday vibe alive with our series!

We continue our Friday series where we review and announce studies that we find interesting and that we recommend investors and founders pay attention to. Today, we will be providing an overview of the report “Medical cost trend: behind the numbers 2025” published by PWC. USA Commercial medical cost trends are expected to stay high for the fourth year in a row, with group health plans projected to see an 8.5% increase in 2026 matching the 2025 trend while the individual market is forecast to hold at 7.5%.

Pharmacy costs continue to outpace the medical trend by 2.5 percentage points, and GLP-1 medications for diabetes and weight loss remain a major cost driver with 41% of surveyed health plans ranking GLP-1s among their top two concerns. While the unit cost of these drugs has started to stabilize as supply shortages have been resolved, health plans are consistently reporting double-digit increases in how often these drugs are being used. Beyond GLP-1s, new gene and cell therapies are entering the market with one-time prices reaching into the millions, creating significant financial risk for payers especially for smaller employer groups that cannot easily absorb a single high-cost claim.

Behavioral health is another area where costs are rising quickly, as the use of behavioral health services increased nearly 45% from January 2023 through December 2024 while inpatient behavioral health claims went up almost 80% over the same period. Developmental disorders, anxiety, and depression have seen the largest increases, and telehealth continues to be a major reason why more people are accessing behavioral health services. Health plans expect behavioral health costs to rise by 10% to 20% in the coming year, and workforce shortages continue to limit the supply of providers.

Hospitals and health systems are also under financial pressure, as the healthcare expenditure index has been growing faster than household inflation and the hospital wage index has exceeded the national wage index since 2021. Operating margins for hospital systems were only 2.1% in 2024, which is far below the 7% margins they had in 2019, and with Medicare physician fees decreasing while Medicaid rates follow a similar path, providers are expected to ask for higher rates from commercial health plans. The report notes that commercial rates would need to increase by nearly 14% to cover the current 6% to 7% rise in operating expenses.

There are some factors helping to keep costs down, but they are not strong enough to reverse the overall trend as biosimilars remain the top deflator for the third straight year with the use of Humira biosimilars growing from 3% to 28% between January and November 2024. The three largest pharmacy benefit managers are now moving away from Humira and only covering biosimilars, and Stelara biosimilars are also launching with list prices more than 80% lower than the original product. More than 75% of health plans said that managing total cost of care is a top deflator, up from 60% the previous year, and health plans are using tools like prior authorization reform, AI for payment integrity, and tighter oversight of GLP-1s.

Our Venture Builder is looking for projects in the digital health market and is ready to help founders develop them. If you have such a project, please send your investment deck to us [email protected]

22/05/2026

This Friday’s story kicks off now.

We continue our Friday series where we review and announce studies that we find interesting and that we recommend investors and founders pay attention to. Today, we will be providing an overview of the report “Global Healthcare Private Equity
Report 2026” by Bain & Company.

After a period of post-COVID turbulence and macroeconomic uncertainty, healthcare private equity did not just recover in 2025. It shattered previous records. Total deal value reached 191 billion dollars, surpassing the 2021 peak and making it the strongest year ever for the sector. Deal volume was equally impressive, with an estimated 445 buyouts announced, the second highest annual total on record. Exit activity also exploded, jumping from 54 billion dollars in 2024 to 156 billion dollars in 2025. More than 40 exits exceeded 1 billion dollars each.

The year had its ups and downs. After a strong first quarter, activity in North America and Asia-Pacific slowed due to trade tensions and tariff uncertainty. But Europe stayed resilient throughout, and by the second half of the year, global deal volume had risen 39 percent. Europe's deal value doubled to 59 billion dollars, driven by biopharma, which accounted for 65 percent of the region's total. North America bounced back with 26 transactions above 1 billion dollars, over 70 percent of them sponsor-to-sponsor sales. Asia-Pacific set a new record, with deal value exceeding 2021's high by more than 30 percent, led by biopharma, provider deals, medtech, and healthcare IT.

By sector, biopharma remained dominant, with deal value rising from 55 billion dollars in 2024 to 80 billion dollars in 2025, on nearly 20 percent higher volume. Provider and related services saw deal value jump 57 percent to 62 billion dollars. Within that, healthcare IT doubled to 32 billion dollars, including Warburg Pincus selling ModMed to Clearlake Capital for over 5 billion dollars. Medtech emerged as a major growth story, with deal value nearly doubling to 33 billion dollars. The largest deal of the year was Blackstone and TPG's 18.3 billion dollar take-private of Hologic, a women's health medtech company, which alone represented about 9 percent of all healthcare PE deal value in 2025.

Sponsor-to-sponsor deals also roared back. Volume and value hit record highs, with more than 150 such deals worth an estimated 110 billion dollars. Over 30 sponsor-to-sponsor deals exceeded 1 billion dollars, up from just 8 in 2024.

Beyond the numbers, the report highlights three major trends. First, healthcare IT is seeing a new performance standard, what Bain calls the Rule of 60, meaning the sum of revenue growth and EBITDA margin exceeds 60 percent, well above the classic Rule of 40. Winners are using pricing strategies, cross-selling, AI, and M&A to get there. Second, physician group investors are moving beyond simple buy-and-build models to integrated, clinician-focused platforms that improve care and efficiency. Success now depends on better clinician experience, value-based care, ancillary services, and AI. Third, in pharma services, despite headwinds from lower biotech funding and policy uncertainty, smart investors are focusing on large-scale, differentiated assets and business models that are insulated from volatility, such as those serving big pharma rather than early-stage biotech.

Our Venture Builder is looking for projects in the digital health market and is ready to help founders develop them. If you have such a project, please send your investment deck to us [email protected]

15/05/2026

Friday traditions carry on – let's dive in!

We continue our Friday series where we review and announce studies that we find interesting and that we recommend investors and founders pay attention to. Today, we will be providing an overview of the paper “Gen AI amplified: Scaling productivity for healthcare providers” published by Accenture.

The healthcare industry is facing a crisis that no amount of traditional hiring or training can solve. Demand is surging as the population ages, with the number of people aged 60 to 90 expected to grow by nearly half over the next two decades. At the same time, the workforce is shrinking at an alarming rate. The United States alone is projected to face a shortage of up to 139,000 physicians by 2033, while nearly 900,000 registered nurses are expected to leave the profession by 2027. Globally, the nursing shortfall could reach 13 million.

However, 70% of healthcare workers' tasks could be reinvented through automation or augmentation, not by replacing humans but by giving them time back to focus on what only humans can do. In nursing alone, automation could free up one-fifth of repetitive, lower-complexity tasks, unlocking nearly $50 billion in annual value in the United States.

Much of this opportunity lies in language-based work. Roughly 40% of the healthcare industry's total working hours are devoted to tasks like clinical documentation, note summarization, inbox management, and appeals processing. Of that, 17% can be fully automated and another 23% can be augmented by AI working alongside clinicians.

Healthcare executives are well aware of this potential. 83% of those surveyed said boosting employee efficiency is a top priority, and 77% expect generative AI to deliver productivity gains that directly drive revenue growth, not just reduce costs. However, a dangerous gap has emerged between ambition and action. While 83% of healthcare executives are piloting generative AI in pre-production environments, fewer than 10% are investing in the infrastructure necessary to support enterprise-wide deployment. Only half of IT executives in healthcare report strong alignment between technology initiatives and overall business strategy, which leads to poor conversion of funded pilots into real-world impact. As a result, 60% expect returns within 12 months, yet 95% anticipate only moderate impact over the next five years due to insufficient infrastructure.

One of the most significant barriers to scaling is the gap in responsible AI deployment. 85% of healthcare executives cite cybersecurity as a major obstacle, yet only 10% recognize underlying technological constraints such as poor data quality and integration. The risks are real and growing, including data theft, large-scale misinformation, copyright infringement, and amplification of existing biases. Despite widespread acknowledgment of responsible AI principles, only 2% of companies have fully operationalized responsible AI across their organizations.

The report outlines what healthcare providers must do to move from pilots to scale. First, they need to build a reinvention-ready digital core that integrates cloud platforms, seamless data access, and strong governance. Healthcare organizations with industry-leading digital cores expect to reinvent twice as many functions with generative AI and create twice as much value over the next three years. Second, they must strengthen data quality and strategy, because generative AI is only as reliable as the data it learns from. Centralized, standardized, and secure data is a prerequisite, not an option. Third, responsible and secure AI deployment must be embedded from the beginning, with continuous monitoring, tailored large language models, and a workforce trained in safe AI use.

Our Venture Builder is looking for projects in the digital health market and is ready to help founders develop them. If you have such a project, please send your investment deck to us [email protected]

13/05/2026

💊 Number of the Day — $2.1B

That’s how much Isomorphic Labs — an AI-biotech company and DeepMind spinout — has raised to accelerate AI-driven drug discovery.

The round became one of the largest in AI for Healthcare, signaling that the market is betting not only on LLMs, but also on AI-powered pharmaceutical innovation.

The company’s next milestone is to bring AI-designed drugs into clinical trials by the end of 2026.

For the pharmaceutical industry, this is another strong signal: AI is evolving from an optimization tool into a core platform for creating new products and transforming R&D.

The 4PM Ventures team invites pharmaceutical companies to collaborate.

We can support you with:
— technology scouting and identification of promising AI/biotech solutions
— access to international innovation ecosystems
— attracting external funding and co-financing innovation projects
— development of new digital services
— solutions to improve operational efficiency and accelerate innovation

We are especially interested in companies working at the intersection of:
🧬 AI + Drug Discovery
📊 AI + Clinical Development
⚙️ AI + Pharma Operations
🩺 Digital Health & Preventive Care

We would be happy to connect and explore partnership opportunities.

08/05/2026

We analyzed the latest research from Endeavor: "Where Do Unicorns Come From?" - exploring how and where unicorn founders emerge.

And we would like to highlight several conclusions that we believe are critically important for the development of HealthTech ecosystems in Europe and beyond.

The main conclusion of the research:
unicorns do not emerge by accident.

They are created inside strong entrepreneurial ecosystems where there is continuous interaction between:

* entrepreneurs,
* investors,
* universities,
* corporations,
* healthcare institutions,
* international markets.

The research shows:

🔹 founders are developed inside startup and scaleup environments — not only within elite universities;

🔹 one successful startup creates a multiplier effect — generating new founders, investors, mentors, and companies;

🔹 international exposure, mobility, and cross-border integration are critical drivers of strong innovation ecosystems;

🔹 the next generation of unicorns will not be isolated products, but platforms and infrastructure players solving systemic healthcare challenges.

These are exactly the principles around which 4PM Ventures is building its model.

We believe the future of healthcare will not be created by standalone startups, but by ecosystems, platforms, and new models of collaboration between market participants.

That is why 4PM Ventures focuses on:

* venture building,
* platform approach,
* ecosystem orchestration,
* startup relocation,
* cross-border innovation development,
* corporate venture building.

Our goal is not simply to invest in startups, but to build the infrastructure for the creation of new companies, platforms, and future healthcare unicorns.

HealthTech remains one of the most challenging industries:
regulation, clinical validation, long commercialization cycles, and the high cost of mistakes mean that most startups do not survive.

We are building a system to reduce this risk through:

* venture building,
* acceleration,
* ecosystem integration,
* corporate partnerships,
* international integration.

Today, 4PM Ventures is open to relocation from Latvia to countries and regions interested in developing HealthTech ecosystems, and is looking for strategic partners and investors ready to jointly build innovation infrastructure and transform healthcare markets.

We believe:
the future of healthcare will not be built by individual companies.

It will be built by ecosystems.

Endeavor Insight studied the career journeys of founders from the top $1+ billion companies in emerging markets and the United States.

08/05/2026

The Friday journey continues!

We continue our Friday series where we review and announce studies that we find interesting and that we recommend investors and founders pay attention to. Today, we will be providing an overview of the report "Disciplined transformation in an AI-enabled value-based market" published by KPMG.

Deal volumes dropped overall last year, with life sciences transactions falling from 924 to 813 and healthcare deals from 846 to 811. The fourth quarter was especially slow. That said, not every area struggled. Healthcare services remained the most active subsector, largely because the move to lower-cost care settings continued to accelerate. Healthcare IT also had a strong year, with deal volume hitting a four-year high as hospitals, insurers, and investors looked for digital tools to manage costs and improve efficiency. Hospitals and health systems had the toughest year, with only 46 deals announced or closed, down from over 100 in each of the previous five years.

Medical device companies spent much of 2025 reshaping their portfolios toward faster-growing areas like cardiology, ophthalmology, and oncology. AI in radiology expanded rapidly, with over 100 new FDA-approved algorithms in the first half of the year. The largest deal was Blackstone and TPG taking Hologic private for more than $18.3 billion. Pricing pressure was the top concern, with 67% of survey respondents saying the inability to pass along cost increases was their biggest challenge. Tariffs are an added worry, with one estimate suggesting 75% of medical devices sold in the US could face new tariffs in 2026.

Hospitals and health systems are under serious pressure. Research cited in the report found that about one-third of rural hospitals, more than 700 in total, are at risk of closure. The shift to outpatient care continues to reshape the industry, with outpatient volumes projected to rise 18% over the next decade compared to just 5% for inpatient stays.

Healthcare services had 439 deals through mid-December. Large drug distributors made significant moves: McKesson invested billions in cancer care services, Cardinal Health bought major stakes in urology and gastroenterology practices, Cencora closed a $4.4 billion acquisition. Behavioral health continued to attract strong interest, though reimbursement uncertainty is growing.

Healthcare payers completed only 71 deals as rising medical costs and higher than expected use of services forced insurers to rethink strategies. Many chose joint ventures over full acquisitions. Regulatory scrutiny remains high. AI adoption is growing but cautious. More than 85% of respondents expect to use generative AI in back office functions in 2026, but states like California have already banned insurers from using AI to deny coverage.

Healthcare IT was the best performing subsector. Deal volume hit a four-year high, up 14% from 2024. The American Medical Association found that two-thirds of physicians used health AI in 2024, up from less than one in four in 2023. Major tech companies like Microsoft, Alphabet, and Nvidia have invested hundreds of billions in AI relevant to healthcare.

Looking ahead to 2026, 67% of survey respondents expect deal volume to increase. Only 5% expect fewer transactions. The top concern is the future performance of target companies, followed by competition for a limited number of high-value assets and high valuations.

Our Venture Builder is looking for projects in the digital health market and is ready to help founders develop them. If you have such a project, please send your investment deck to us [email protected]

06/05/2026

Our section: Go Global Strategies.

The 4PM Ventures team helps startups enter new markets by developing growth strategies. As part of developing these strategies, we showcase various approaches and tools used in the market. One such tool is acquiring a local player with an existing customer base and a team that understands the local market. Here's an example of this approach in use.

Why does a startup need such a development and market entry strategy, you ask? A well-developed strategy, including selecting a company to acquire for market entry, simplifies and accelerates the process of raising investment.

The French scaleup says plans to hire 150 people and open a R&D centre in London