VCs, angels, and M&A all hot for healthcare IT in mid-2013

Despite the claims of the doomsayers after passage of the Affordable Care Act, healthcare IT is a booming business -- especially if you ask the investment community. Three separate reports out this month, covering venture capital, angel investment, and mergers and acquisitions all describe jumps in deal flow and capital availability.

Let's pay a visit to our friends in the VC community first. As we all know, if one VC is onto a good deal, they all start piling on. Since there's quite a bit of activity in health IT, smart (or at least greedy) money is on health IT as a potential gold mine.

An analysis out from Texas-based Mercom Capital Group reports record VC investment growth in the second quarter with $623 million raised, compared to $493 million in Q1. Deal flow jumped from 104 deals in Q1 to 168 in Q2.

Let's move from those devilish VCs to the community of angel investors. Venture Beat reports Angel investment is up 23 percent , with healthcare grabbing almost 19 percent of all deals and almost 23 percent of all money invested.

Finally, let's pay a visit to our friends in the Saville Row suits, those magicians of the balance sheet, the mergers and acquisition bankers. According to an article in Healthcare IT which quotes investment bank Berkery Noyes saying, "During the first six months of 2013, health information technology was the 'most active market segment' of the healthcare/pharma/IT industry for mergers and acquisitions."

Here's an interesting tidbit. Deal volume (the number of times the suits sign contracts) is down by 16 percent since the end of 2012. However, while the number of deals went down, the transaction value (the money part of the equation) went up 58 percent, from about $5 billion to a little over $8 billion so far this year. So, fewer companies are getting a lot more moolah.

The moral of this story is pretty simple: the money folks think there's green in them healthcare IT hills. If you're looking for career opportunities, it looks like there are some companies in the healthcare IT world who have a little more cash to spend these days.