Who are the leading Digital Health M&A Advisors in Europe?

Lloyd Price
Oct 1
15 min read

Executive Summary: The Bimodal Strategy in European Digital Health M&A

The advisory landscape supporting Mergers and Acquisitions (M&A) within the European Digital Health sector is highly structured and complex, reflecting both the rapid technological evolution of the industry and the strategic consolidation imperatives driving its participants. A comprehensive analysis demonstrates that a singular definition of a "leading" advisor is insufficient. Instead, the market is fundamentally characterised by a bimodal distribution of influence.

This distribution features two dominant, distinct classes of advisory firms. The first class comprises Global Financial Powerhouses, typically Bulge Bracket or large full-service institutions, whose leadership is derived from their capacity to execute large-cap, multi-jurisdictional transactions and provide comprehensive capital solutions.

The second class consists of Highly Specialised, Sector-Focused Boutiques, whose influence stems from deep, qualitative domain expertise, thought leadership in niche technical sub-segments, and a practitioner-led approach to advisory services. Therefore, advisory leadership is defined by the strategic alignment between the advisor’s core competency, whether global scale or vertical specialisation and the complexity and specific needs of the client’s mandate.

Current market dynamics underscore the intensifying requirement for specialised advice. Despite a broader global market recalibration, the European sector exhibited remarkable resilience in the first half of 2025 (H1 2025), recording an impressive 52% year-on-year increase in funding, reaching $3.4 Billion across 182 deals.

This substantial capital infusion is fuelling M&A activity, which remains the primary and preferred exit path for investors. The dominant transaction themes are consolidation across the value chain, driven by the desire to create end-to-end platforms, and a marked increase in Private Equity (PE) and strategic trade interest.

Strategic findings confirm the leadership position of highly specialised firms such as Nelson Advisors, which focuses intently on specialised, high-growth sub-sectors including Healthcare AI and Cybersecurity, often guiding early-stage companies through M&A exits.

Simultaneously, strategic personnel movements at global institutions, notably the hiring of a physician to lead the EMEA Healthcare Investment Banking franchise at Goldman Sachs, signal an aggressive strategic intent by the Global Financial Powerhouses to capture large-cap mandates involving clinically validated technology platforms. This report provides a detailed assessment of these two advisory classes and the underlying market forces shaping their competitive dynamic.

The European Digital Health M&A Market Context: Resilience and Consolidation

This section examines the macro-environmental factors and fundamental transaction drivers that establish the robust demand for specialised M&A advisory services in the European Digital Health sector.

Market Size, Growth Trajectory, and Resilience (2023–2028 Forecast)

The Digital Health sector represents one of the fastest-growing segments globally, providing a solid foundation for sustained M&A activity. The global Digital Health market was valued at $170.2 Billion in 2023 and is projected to surge by a significant 62%, exceeding $275 Billion by 2028. This long-term growth trajectory ensures that M&A remains a viable and necessary mechanism for market participants seeking rapid scale and technological integration.

The European ecosystem, in particular, has demonstrated exceptional vigor, defying a broader global slowdown in capital deployment. While global Digital Health funding experienced an 11% year-on-year decline, reflecting a wider market recalibration, Europe's performance was in stark contrast. The region achieved a substantial 52% year-on-year increase in H1 2025 funding, totalling $3.4 billion across 182 deals. This performance propelled Europe's share of global funding to a record 26% in the first half of the year, a strong divergence from the US market where funding fell to its lowest level in five years.

This influx of capital and strategic confidence indicates a pivotal moment of maturation within the European ecosystem. The average deal size in Europe for H1 2025 reached $18.6 Million, representing a threefold increase (3.0x higher) compared to Q2 2024 figures. This substantial increase in average deal size reflects a crucial shift in investor preference: capital is increasingly being allocated to larger, "high-conviction investments" rather than small, speculative ventures. Companies within the region are accumulating sufficient clinical evidence and scale to warrant substantial investor confidence and higher valuations. This market maturity inherently strengthens the positioning of sophisticated financial advisors capable of handling complex valuations rooted in demonstrated clinical efficacy and measurable revenue potential, rather than relying solely on early-stage user metrics. It elevates the technical complexity of M&A mandates, moving them squarely into the domain of highly experienced investment banks and specialised corporate finance experts.

Core M&A Drivers: Consolidation, PE Momentum and Digital Integration

M&A activity is driven by fundamental structural deficiencies in traditional healthcare systems and a relentless pursuit of efficiency. Digital Health solutions are explicitly designed to alleviate pain points such as outdated operational systems, administrative burden, and high inefficiency costs plaguing traditional systems.

The Strategic Imperative of Vertical Integration

A core M&A driver is the ongoing race among participants to achieve comprehensive value chain integration. The market remains highly fragmented, making it primed for consolidation. Providers are looking to pursue acquisitions that strategically enhance digital capabilities, integrate tech-driven health services, and expand their patient networks. The overarching strategic goal is the establishment of an interconnected healthcare ecosystem and a seamless patient pathway. Incumbents are actively engaged in a "continuing race... to be the first truly end-to-end platform," housing various elements of digital healthcare under a single entity. This structural drive for consolidation is expected to continue as businesses aim to service more comprehensive segments of the patient journey.

Because M&A in this environment is often a defensive or strategically essential move, not merely a financial transaction, advisors must possess advanced expertise not only in valuation metrics but also in complex post-acquisition integration strategies, particularly concerning regulatory compliance and disparate data system harmonisation. Advisors who understand the end-to-end patient care journey from initial telemedicine consultation to pharmacy fulfillment, for instance, offer superior strategic counsel.

Private Equity and Strategic Trade Interest

The potential scale and robust growth of Digital Health are increasingly familiar to institutional investors, resulting in a surge in Private Equity (PE) interest. The intersection of technology and healthcare remains a highly attractive sector for PE, offering strong growth potential. As smaller businesses achieve necessary scale, either organically or through sequential consolidation, the volume of sponsor-led mid-market deals is expected to increase significantly.

This increasing institutional interest is also driven by consumer demand factors. For instance, in the UK, data indicates that 33% of people had to wait a week or more to see a General Practitioner (GP) in 2024, leading consumers to seek online consultations for time-saving benefits, cost-effectiveness, and general convenience.Furthermore, government involvement, such as increased partnerships between private companies and public services like the NHS (allowing patients to access GPs and nurses through video consultations and specialist referrals), further validates the sector for major investment. This combination of strong patient demand, government validation, and technological advancement ensures sustained M&A volume growth.

Exit Dynamics: M&A as the Primary Pathway

The primary mechanism for realizing investor returns in the European Digital Health sector is M&A, rather than public market offerings. M&A remains the dominant exit route, contrasted with the recorded activity of only one IPO and three SPACs in H1 2025.

In the first half of 2025, 30 ventures either went public or were acquired, with 25 M&A transactions recorded.A critical trend within this environment is the dominance of venture-to-venture (V2V) transactions, which accounted for a substantial 75% of recorded acquisitions during H1 2025. This demonstrates a phase of active consolidation and strategic growth among venture-backed companies themselves, often fueled by new growth-stage capital flowing into the region.

For companies under pressure due to a tighter venture capital funding environment and a less active initial public offering (IPO) market, pursuing strategic M&A exits sooner becomes a necessity.

This duality creates parallel streams of demand: one for the large-scale financial structuring offered by Class I advisors, and another for the highly tailored exit strategy services provided by Class II specialised boutiques.

Key Digital Health M&A Market Drivers and Transaction Trends (2024–2025)

M&A Driver/Trend	Strategic Observation	Advisory Impact
Value Chain Consolidation	Drive for "end-to-end platforms" and interconnected healthcare ecosystems	Increased demand for advisors specialising in bolt-on acquisitions and integration strategy.
Increasing PE Interest	PE firms seek scale and strong growth potential in digitised care management systems	Higher volume of sponsor-led mid-market deals requiring specialised due diligence.
Consumer Convenience Demand	Patients demand online consultations and digitised services	Advisory focus shifts towards providers demonstrating robust scalability and user adoption metrics.
European Funding Resilience	Significant funding injection in H1 2025 despite global slowdown	Strong pipeline of well-capitalized targets, increasing transaction quality over volume.

Defining Leadership: The Bimodal Advisory Structure

The analysis confirms that designating a singular "leading advisor" in European Digital Health is insufficient. Advisory leadership must be qualified by the firm’s ability to address specific transaction requirements related to scale, complexity, and specific sector knowledge.

Class I: The Global Financial Powerhouses (Bulge Bracket and Full-Service Banks)

These institutions define their leadership through their capacity for global execution, deep capital structuring expertise, and extensive access to global financial and corporate markets. They are characterized by vast global reach, the ability to raise significant capital, and the experience necessary to structure complex, multi-jurisdictional M&A transactions, particularly for large strategic acquirers or high-value targets.

Their core competitive strength lies in their sector finance depth and their ability to integrate large-scale M&A mandates with associated capital markets solutions. These firms manage competitive auction processes for highly mature, large-cap targets and advise on public market readiness, including IPOs.

Class II: The Highly Specialised, Sector-Focused Boutiques

In contrast, Class II firms achieve leadership through specialisation and qualitative depth. Their influence is not derived from M&A volume or value across all sectors, but rather from deep vertical specialisation and recognized thought leadership within their specific niche. These firms are distinguished by a strong focus on technically complex sub-segments (such as HealthTech, Healthcare AI, and Cybersecurity) and the delivery of advisory services built on direct practitioner experience.

These specialists are essential for guiding early-stage companies toward strategic M&A exits and successfully navigating mid-market transactions (e.g., founder exits or PE bolt-ons) where the core value driver is proprietary technology or complex intellectual property that requires nuanced valuation.

Strategic Segmentation of Leading European Digital Health M&A Advisors

Advisor Class	Example Firm	Primary Strategic Value	Target Deal Type	Key Differentiator
Global Financial Powerhouse	Goldman Sachs, Jefferies	Global execution, Capital structuring, High-volume access	Multi-billion strategic mergers, complex financing, IPO readiness	Depth of capital resources and cross-sector integration
Specialised Boutique	Nelson Advisors	Deep sector expertise, Practitioner-led exit strategy	Early-stage exits, highly technical sub-sector M&A (AI, Cyber)	Unrivalled vertical specialisation and market thought leadership
Mid-Market Specialist	ConAlliance, Livingstone Partners	Regional expertise, Transaction volume in specific deal sizes	Private Equity bolt-ons, regional consolidation, founder exits	Strong mid-market relationships and efficiency

Profiles of Leading Advisory Firms: Class I (Global Financial Powerhouses)

Class I advisors compete primarily for mandates involving the largest transaction values and the highest complexity, leveraging global resources and comprehensive financial product lines.

Goldman Sachs (GS): Strategic Strength and Focused Leadership

Goldman Sachs has clearly signaled its intensification of effort in the European healthcare and technology sector through key strategic personnel decisions. The firm announced the hiring of Philippe Gallone as Partner and Head of Healthcare Investment Banking in EMEA. Based in London, Gallone brings significant experience, joining the firm with 20 years of healthcare banking expertise.

The appointment of Gallone, who holds a medical degree from the University of Lausanne and is a trained physician, is a calculated strategic move by the institution. It demonstrates recognition of the critical need to bridge traditional financial valuation methods with the complex requirements of clinical validation and regulatory understanding inherent in mature Digital Health platforms. Given that the European market is now prioritising large, high-conviction investments requiring evidence of impact, the ability to speak the language of medical professionals and regulatory bodies is a significant competitive advantage. This strategic hire positions Goldman Sachs to handle transactions where clinical data and regulated health systems are central to the target’s value proposition, directly challenging the deep sector knowledge historically claimed by specialized boutiques. The intent is to strengthen client relationships and drive growth across the EMEA healthcare franchise through a highly specialised lens.

Jefferies: Full-Service Execution and Market Breadth

Jefferies is recognised internationally as a leading full-service investment banking and capital markets firm. In the context of Digital Health M&A, Jefferies is a key competitor known for its robust execution capabilities across the capital stack. The firm targets mid- to large-cap healthcare mandates, offering clients a comprehensive partnership that includes insightful strategic advice, driven execution, and high-touch service. Its ability to seamlessly integrate M&A advice with capital raising, spanning equity, debt, and subsequent financing needs, is essential for funding complex, platform building acquisitions and managing the integration costs associated with large-scale consolidation.

Full-Service Corporate Advisory: Alvarez & Marsal (A&M)

Alvarez & Marsal (A&M) operates significantly in the corporate finance advisory space in Europe, specifically within the Digital Health M&A market. While a major portion of their corporate advisory work may focus on due diligence, performance improvement, and financial restructuring, functions crucial to transaction enablement and success, A&M is also actively monitoring and reporting on the Digital Health M&A market, noting the strong trends in consolidation and Private Equity interest.

A&M fields a dedicated Healthcare and Life Sciences (HLS) M&A division in Europe. Key contacts leading this fully resourced team include Al-Munther Sultan (Managing Director and Head of HLS M&A), Claire Edwards (Director), and Rob Sher (Senior Associate). Their role is increasingly relevant as transaction volumes rise and the complexity of integration demands specialised expertise in financial and operational diligence post-transaction.

Profiles of Leading Advisory Firms: Class II (Specialised Boutiques and Mid-Market Experts)

The leadership of specialised boutique firms is derived from their unparalleled depth in vertical technology segments, often offering value propositions that global banks cannot easily replicate for mid-market or highly technical assets.

Nelson Advisors: The Niche Dominator in European Digital Health Exits

Nelson Advisors has carved out a distinct and qualitative leadership position by focusing exclusively on Healthcare Technology Mergers, Acquisitions, and Partnerships. The firm’s specialisation is comprehensive, covering MedTech, Digital Health, HealthTech, Health IT, Consumer HealthTech, Healthcare Cybersecurity, and, notably, Healthcare AI.

Strategic Specialisation and Market Positioning

Nelson Advisors’ strategic positioning is centred at the forefront of critical, high-growth sub-sectors such as Healthcare AI and Cybersecurity. This targeted focus is highly strategic, recognising that deep sector-specific expertise provides a critical competitive edge over sheer brand recognition in highly regulated and technically intricate niches. For companies developing highly proprietary technology, an advisor who is regarded as a thought leader in that specific vertical can better articulate the unique value proposition to potential strategic or financial buyers.

The firm's focus on guiding early-stage companies through M&A exits is a calculated response to adverse market conditions, including a tighter venture capital funding environment and a relatively less active IPO market. This confirms a market demand for highly specialised services designed to maximise returns for high-potential, yet capital-constrained, ventures.

Nelson Advisors: Specialisation Focus in European Digital Health M&A

Specialised Sub-Sector	M&A Implication & Client Focus	Contextual Justification
Digital Health / HealthTech	Focus on mobile health, telehealth platforms, wearables, and personalised wellness solutions.	Covers a broad range of technology-driven solutions.
Healthcare AI	Valuation of proprietary algorithms and data-driven clinical efficiencies; future M&A hotspot.	Strategically positioned at the forefront of critical, high-growth sub-sectors.
Healthcare Cybersecurity	Focus on firms securing patient data and infrastructure, highly sensitive to EU regulation.	Key focus responding to market conditions and regulatory demands.
MedTech (Advanced Devices)	Integration of traditional medical devices with software/digital solutions (robotics, bioprinting).	Encompasses use of technology, products, and services to diagnose, prevent, monitor, treat.

The Practitioner-Led Model

Nelson Advisors is led by co-founders Lloyd Price and Paul Hemings, whose unique, practitioner-led advisory service is derived from their direct experience in both building and successfully exiting HealthTech businesses. This emphasis on practical, operational experience, rather than solely corporate finance expertise, suggests a strong market demand for advisors who fundamentally understand the operational leverage and strategic challenges faced by founders.

This model likely leads to superior alignment between advisory goals and founder objectives, resulting in smoother and more strategically focused due diligence and valuation processes, a major advantage for PE firms executing strategic bolt-ons or corporate buyers seeking seamless technical integration.

ConAlliance: Specialised Mid-Market Focus

ConAlliance has established itself as a significant mid-market M&A advisor in European healthcare and life sciences. The firm maintains an exclusive focus on advising companies within the mid-market segment. With a robust track record of advising on more than 250 M&A transactions, ConAlliance demonstrates significant transactional volume and deep market connections in this specific segment.

Their expertise spans critical areas including medical technology, pharmaceuticals, life sciences, biotechnology, medical devices, diagnostics, and laboratories, making them a crucial partner for founder-led exits and PE-backed consolidation strategies in the mid-range value band.

Other Key Regional Players

The market also relies on highly competent regional firms that deliver specialised, localised expertise. Livingstone Partners is actively engaged in the healthcare sector, with a focus on Medical Technology & Products and Outsourced & Tech-Enabled Services. Their recent involvement includes advising the shareholders of iPractice, an innovative mental healthcare provider in the Netherlands, on its sale to Smile Invest. This highlights the critical role regional specialists play in niche segments, such as mental health technology, and specific national markets (e.g., the Netherlands).

The Ecosystem of Legal and Transaction Support

The successful execution of complex Digital Health M&A mandates is rarely achieved by investment banks alone; it requires close coordination with elite legal counsel specialising in cross-border finance, technology law, and intricate health regulation. Firms like Taylor Wessing (with corporate technology partner Josef Fuss based in London) and Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati (WSGR) (whose team includes partners Megan Baier and Daniel Glazer) are confirmed as central players.

These legal partners have advised major European Digital Health entities, such as Babylon Health, on large funding rounds and related acquisitions. This collaboration, exemplified by the partnership between Taylor Wessing and WSGR, is essential for navigating the complex regulatory environment of Europe, specifically addressing GDPR compliance, the evolving EU AI Act, and managing cross-jurisdictional licensing required for companies operating across multiple European markets (eg. the multi-market footprint of Kry/Livi, encompassing the UK, Sweden, Norway, and France). The strategic importance of legal advisors in mitigating regulatory risk elevates them to critical enablers in the European M&A ecosystem.

Strategic Outlook and Actionable Recommendations

Future M&A Hotspots: AI, Clinical Validation, and Productivity Premium

The future direction of M&A activity will be dictated by technological sophistication and demonstrable return on investment. The prevailing investment sentiment indicates that capital deployment will be selective, demonstrating a strong preference for Artificial Intelligence (AI) ventures that have successfully converted clinical validation into tangible revenue streams.

Furthermore, solutions that demonstrably offer a clear "productivity premium" through the streamlining of care pathways or the reduction of operational costs will continue to attract premium interest. This reinforces the ongoing trend of consolidation, as strategic buyers and PE firms seek accretive technologies that provide measurable cost-saving benefits and efficiency gains.

This investor focus on clinically validated outcomes and productivity necessitates a fundamental shift in the valuation criteria applied to Digital Health targets. Advisors must possess the ability to quantify efficiency gains in clinical workflows and demonstrate robust regulatory compliance, moving beyond simple metrics like user adoption or subscription growth.

The complexity of financial projections, which increasingly rely on clinical outcomes rather than just market penetration, elevates the specialised boutiques (Class II) focusing on Healthcare AI, while simultaneously requiring that global powerhouses (Class I) hire clinically sophisticated teams, as evidenced by the appointment of a physician to lead Goldman Sachs' EMEA Healthcare Investment Banking.

Criteria for Advisor Selection: Tailoring Mandates

The selection of an M&A advisor must be a highly tailored strategic decision, optimally aligning the firm's inherent competitive advantages with the client’s specific transaction objective.

Selection of Global Powerhouses

The Global Financial Powerhouses (Class I) are the optimal choice when:

The transaction size is large-cap (exceeding $500 million) or requires the integration of significant debt, equity, or specialised capital markets solutions alongside the M&A execution.
The mandate is multi-jurisdictional and involves complex integration with global incumbents in the pharmaceutical, technology, or insurance sectors.
The client’s long-term strategy involves eventual public market access, requiring specialized pre-IPO positioning and underwriting capabilities.

Selection of Specialised Boutiques

The Highly Specialised Boutiques (Class II) are the optimal choice when:

The target operates within a highly technical and nascent niche, such as early-stage AI, specialised MedTech integration, or Healthcare Cybersecurity.
The transaction represents a strategic exit for founders who explicitly require an advisor with operational, practitioner-led experience derived from having previously built and exited similar HealthTech businesses.
The transaction is a mid-market bolt-on acquisition where intimate sector knowledge is paramount for accurate valuation and smooth post-deal technical integration.

Conclusions: The Strategic Imperative of Specialised Alignment

The European Digital Health M&A advisory landscape is defined by its strategic bifurcation, reflecting the maturity of the ecosystem and the complexity of its underlying assets. Leadership is not monolithic; it is shared between the global reach of institutions capable of mobilising massive capital (Goldman Sachs, Jefferies) and the deep technical competence of highly specialised firms (Nelson Advisors, ConAlliance).

The key takeaway for corporate development executives and PE partners is that transaction success increasingly depends on matching the specific nature of the asset being acquired, whether a scaling platform or a technical niche solution, with the appropriate advisory skillset. Given the high rate of V2V consolidation and the unrelenting drive for end-to-end platforms, technical due diligence and post-acquisition integration readiness, often facilitated by the deep operational insights of specialist advisors, become the primary determinants of transaction value capture. Failure to align the advisory team’s expertise with the specific regulatory and technical challenges of a Digital Health mandate poses a significant risk to deal execution and long-term integration success.

Nelson Advisors > MedTech and HealthTech M&A

Nelson Advisors specialise in mergers, acquisitions and partnerships for Digital Health, HealthTech, Health IT, Consumer HealthTech, Healthcare Cybersecurity, Healthcare AI companies based in the UK, Europe and North America. www.nelsonadvisors.co.uk

Nelson Advisors regularly publish Healthcare Technology thought leadership articles covering market insights, trends, analysis & predictions @ https://www.healthcare.digital

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Founders for Founders > We pride ourselves on our DNA as ‘HealthTech entrepreneurs advising HealthTech entrepreneurs.’ Nelson Advisors partner with entrepreneurs, boards and investors to maximise shareholder value and investment returns. www.nelsonadvisors.co.uk

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