Health IT, Startups

Mental health startup SonderMind brings in $2.5M seed round

Kickstart Seed Fund led the round, and Purple Arch Ventures, SpringTime Ventures, Service Provider Capital and Lanoha Ventures also participated.

SonderMind, a startup that serves as a matchmaking service for therapists and patients, has raised $2.5 million in funding.

Kickstart Seed Fund led the round, and Purple Arch Ventures, SpringTime Ventures, Service Provider Capital and Lanoha Ventures also participated.

The Denver-based company’s platform helps individuals search for and get matched with a therapist who suits their needs. On the flip side, it helps therapists secure patients. The tool also handles much of the billing side of the equation, allowing mental health providers to focus on doing what they love: assist the patient.

The seed round will go toward a variety of projects, co-founder and CEO Mark Frank explained in a recent phone interview. It will be used to build SonderMind’s software and to hire more staff members. Frank added that the money will help the startup, which currently operates solely in Colorado, expand to one or two new markets. But SonderMind isn’t rushing that phase — the expansion will likely happen at the end of 2018 or the beginning of 2019.

Moving forward, the startup will also utilize the injection of funding to team up with primary care organizations, health systems and self-insured employers. It has already launched a partnership with Physician Health Partners, a Denver-based accountable care organization with more than 300 primary care physicians under its umbrella.

“When they approached us a little while ago about engaging with them, we jumped at the chance,” Frank said.

Through the relationship, SonderMind is PHP’s preferred provider for patients in need of mental health services.

Frank also touched on the twofold impetus for creating the company. On the one hand, he experienced firsthand how challenging it was to find a therapist who accepted new clients, accepted his insurance and met his specific needs. Frank also witnessed the difficulties his sister, a behavioral health provider, encountered when she was building her own private practice.

Thus, he and his co-founder Sean Boyd, a therapist, formed SonderMind.

Last year, the company was one of 10 digital health startups selected to be part of Healthbox Studio’s cohort. Other class members included Trusted Health, a career service for nurses, and Qidza, which has a screening tool that helps parents spot developmental delays in their child.

Looking ahead, SonderMind’s goal is “to make behavioral health more accessible, more approachable and more utilized by clients,” Frank said. In addition to reducing the stigma around mental health, the company wants to make the “moment of courage” — when an individual decides to reach out for mental health assistance — easier for a patient, Frank added.

Photo: SonderMind

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