H1 acquires Ribbon Health, adds FDA's Stephen Hahn to board

H1 has acquired fellow health data company Ribbon Health, kicking off what could be a flurry of merger and acquisition activity this year in the sector.

Financial terms of the deal, which closed Dec. 12 and was announced Wednesday, were not disclosed. The transaction involved a mix of cash and stock options, said H1 CEO Ariel Katz.

Related: Digital health investors predict uptick in M&A for 2025

H1 has created a platform with information on healthcare providers that it sells to pharmaceutical and life sciences companies. Ribbon has developed a similar platform that it sells to digital health and health insurance companies. The two companies have visions that mesh well, said Katz, who will oversee the combined entity.

“It was on day one when I met Ribbon Health CEO Nate Maslak and we said, 'We should be doing this together and not separately,'” Katz said. “We have similar missions, similar product sets. There are some benefits and differences in how we approach it but I’ve been trying to convince him for three years.”

H1 also named Dr. Stephen Hahn, former commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, to its board of directors.

H1, which has raised $193 million since its start in 2017, is expected to turn its first profit this year, Katz said. He declined to disclose the company's revenue.

Ribbon has raised $75 million since its 2016 founding from venture capital investors such as General Catalyst and Andreessen Horowitz. Katz said H1 had to fend to off other digital health companies as well as private equity firms interested in buying Ribbon.

"We had to convince their investors that H1 is the best home for Ribbon," Katz said.

That competition signals the health tech industry may see an uptick in deal-making in 2025. Katz said the M&A environment from bank lenders felt more like 2020 than it did before 2022, when deal activity started slowing as a result of economic challenges.