Interest and investment in the online therapy space has been ramping up as the technology has been positioned as a lever to address the larger issue of expanding access to behavioral health resources.
One key example is telebehavioral health company Talkspace, which has raised $50 million Series D funding and launched a new partnership with Optum’s behavioral health business to make its services available to 2 million additional customers.
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The funding round was led by Revolution Growth, along with participation by existing investors including Norwest Venture Partners, Qumra Capital, Spark Capital and Compound Ventures. As part of the deal Revolution Growth’s Patrick Conroy will join the company’s board of directors. The company has raised a total of $110 million since its founding in 2012.
Talkspace boasts more than 5,000 licensed therapists on its platform, who act as independent contractors for the company. Options start $49 a week for text, video and audio messaging with a therapist up to $79 a week for a package that includes four live sessions a month. The company also offers specific services geared for couples and teenagers.
The new capital will be used to boost the company’s commercial business where it sells its service to employers, health plans and employee assistance programs. According to the company, Talkspace reaches more than 5 million lives through its direct-to-consumer business and partners like Optum, Aetna, Premera Blue Cross, Magellan Health and New Directions Behavioral Health.
Dr. Neil Leibowitz, Talkspace’s chief medical officer, joined the company from UnitedHealthcare last year and expanded on its aims to make commercial clients a larger part of the business.
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“The biggest point in these conversations (with health plans) has been providing that large scale access to services is really important, both in rural outposts and major cities its very hard to find a therapist and psychiatrist in timely manner,” Leibowitz said. “Lack of access impacts both mental wellbeing and overall medical costs.”
Since joining the company, Leibowitz has been responsible for launching Talkspace’s psychiatry practice – which includes the ability to prescribe medication – as part of the company’s effort to offer benefits providers a “full suite of services that expands that access to clients.”
Currently psychiatry services through Talkspace are offered in half a dozen states, but the company hopes to expand to the entire country by the end of the year.
Part of that expansion has involved developing communication tools allowing for care coordination between a patient’s therapist and psychiatrist. From there, the company hopes to build more robust integration features that would allow primary care providers and Talkspace providers to share information and open up new referral pathways to Talkspace services.
The company’s new capital will also be deployed to help Talkspace expand to two new international markets starting next year and invest in new technology capabilities to help advise therapists on how best to provide care through tools like risk assessment.
“The progress they’ve made thus far underscores the overwhelming demand for greater and easier access to mental health services. Affordable, convenient, and high quality care is a critical need for tens of millions of Americans and our partnership will help ensure that treatment can be available at the click of a button,” Conroy said in a statement.
Talkspace is just one company in the growing telebehavioral health space. Competitors range from fellow startups like Ginger.io and Lyra Health to more general telehealth companies with behavioral health capabilities like Teladoc and MDLive.
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