At the dawn of a new year, it seems like the perfect time to reflect on what has been an exciting 12 months of investment in digital health and explore what’s next in 2022. A total of $21.3B was invested between Q1-Q3 of 2021, up from $14.6B invested in 2020. Let’s start with two top investment areas that should receive extra attention this year and beyond.
- Child and Adolescent Mental Health
In 2020, 16.0% of children aged 5 to 16 years (one in six), were identified as having a probable mental health disorder, an increase from 10.8% of children in 2017. Anxiety, depression and ADHD were the most common conditions, though all are under diagnosed. Staggeringly, up to 10% of 15-16-year-olds are reported to self-harm. Fueled by social media, body dysmorphic disorder now affects 2.4% of young people, and around 2.7% of teenagers between 13 and 18 years now have an eating disorder, up by 52% in the past year.
The Company is engaging Proactive for an initial period of twelve months starting in January, 2022. In consideration for the services of Proactive, Hapbee has agreed to pay an aggregate amount of US$65,500 plus applicable taxes, payable in two equal amounts on January 30, 2022 and April 30, 2022. Proactive will provide editorial coverage of Hapbee’s news releases, generate feature articles based on interviews with company executives, and produce video interviews, with all content to be featured on Proactive websites and further distributed through Proactive’s multinational network of syndication partners. The Company and Proactive act at arm’s length, and Proactive has no interest, direct or indirectly, in the Company or its securities or any right or intent to acquire such an interest. The fee to be paid by the Company to Proactive is for the Services only.
