Meeting the growing mental health need has meant not only offering new treatments but putting more resources into studying the effectiveness of existing medications and therapies. That requires collecting lots of data to fill in gaps in research, which is a primary focus of Osmind—a San Francisco-based startup led by scientists, technologists and psychiatrists. To help support the work it’s doing in this area, the company announced Tuesday that it has raised $40 million to expand its platform for mental health research and treatment.
“Our funding allows us to continue to help the medical community advance life-saving mental health interventions,” said Lucia Huang, CEO and co-founder of Osmind, in an email.
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The Series B investment was led by DFJ Growth. New investors Susa Ventures, Lachy Groom, Brent Saunders (former CEO and chairman of Allergan and current Osmind board member), Helena Goodman and Ariel Katz (CEO of H1), and existing investors General Catalyst, Future Ventures, Tiger Global and Pear VC also contributed.
The round brings the total amount Osmind has raised to $57 million since the company’s founding in 2020. That includes $15 million from a Series A round last year and $2 million in seed funding raised in 2020. Following the latest funding round, Justin Kao, partner at DFJ Growth, and the co-founder of Helix, will join Osmind’s board of directors.
Osmind helps the medical community administer treatments, and track and study the effectiveness of those treatments for 14 million U.S. patients living with moderate and serious mental illness, according to the company. The startup makes money by selling software to mental health providers and establishing commercial relationships with life sciences organizations to gain research insights that help make mental health treatments safer and more widely accessible for patients, Huang said.
Mental health providers use Osmind’s software and electronic health record to care for patients and run their practices. Osmind then works with scientists to analyze information being entered into the software (with patient details anonymized to protect privacy) to understand what treatments work best for the individual and to improve clinical trial design for new treatments.
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The startup currently has a number of studies underway with collaborators at Stanford University School of Medicine that are expected to shed more light on the effectiveness of treatments like the drug ketamine, which has received only limited study. Osmind worked with Stanford physician-scientists to publish what the company described as the largest real-world data study on ketamine infusion therapy in the Journal of Affective Disorders in March. The analysis found that ketamine was a rapid, effective and lasting treatment for depression, and that over 70% of patients enrolled in the study who initially had suicidal thoughts showed improvement.
In addition to supporting research, the funding Osmind raised will be used to continue to develop and scale its electronic health record for mental health research and treatment and double the size of its team virtually and at the company’s San Francisco office from 50 to 100, Huang said.
A range of companies now connect patients with mental health treatment in-person and virtually.
“Mental health startups have proliferated in the past few years,” Huang said. “However, very few are focused on patients with moderate to severe mental health conditions.”
But there some companies that are helping address this need. Those include Mindstrong, a mental health platform for patients with serious mental illness; and Wellpath, which specializes in treating the most vulnerable patients, such as people requiring inpatient mental healthcare.
Even still, Huang emphasizes that Osmind’s model is different from other mental health startups. She reiterates that instead of offering direct clinical care, it plays the role of supporting the mental health providers who ensure patients with significant mental illness get the help they need.
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