Rippl co-founders Inca Dieterich and Kris Engskov
“Despite billions of dollars having been invested in mental health over the course of the last three or four years, we’ve seen very little innovation in frankly one of the biggest and most urgent needs we have: seniors’ mental health,” said Kris Engskov, co-founder and CEO of Rippl Care.
Engskov is looking to change that with his startup, which was established 11 months ago. He said there is a critical dearth of professionals with licenses and training to provide care for seniors’ mental and behavioral health challenges — such as Alzheimer’s and other dementias, anxiety and depression. To Engskov, the “very small number” of clinicians who are capable in the geriatric psychology space means the system is broken.
The Seattle-based company got its name because it seeks to bring about a “big ripple that will create a much bigger wave of folks in the country who are moving into the space,” Engskov said. Investors evidently view this goal as a worthy effort — last week, Rippl closed a $32 million seed funding round led by ARCH Venture Partners and General Catalyst. GV, F-Prime Capital and Mass General Brigham Ventures also participated in the round.
Engskov got his start working in the White House under President Bill Clinton’s administration and later went on to spend 16 years in executive leadership positions at Starbucks. In 2019, he became president of Aegis Living, a Washington-based long term care provider, and held that role until founding Rippl.
“What I learned in two and a half years on the front lines of the long-term care company was that we have a lot of progress to make — I thought that surely some of my consumer skills can be helpful here,” Engskov said. “There were several things I saw that could be done so much better, but one of the things that I was most shocked by was the number of times residents would be sent to the ER with behavioral symptoms related to dementia, despite the fact that we had a large clinical staff on site.”
Access to specialized, long-term care for seniors’ mental and behavioral health is incredibly sparse, so much so that it’s completely nonexistent in many parts of the country, according to Engskov. Key reasons for this problem could be the fact that the fee-for-service model doesn’t pay for holistic care, and primary care physicians often ignore signs of dementia because they’re easily misunderstood and the disease can’t be cured, he said.
A Deep-dive Into Specialty Pharma
A specialty drug is a class of prescription medications used to treat complex, chronic or rare medical conditions. Although this classification was originally intended to define the treatment of rare, also termed “orphan” diseases, affecting fewer than 200,000 people in the US, more recently, specialty drugs have emerged as the cornerstone of treatment for chronic and complex diseases such as cancer, autoimmune conditions, diabetes, hepatitis C, and HIV/AIDS.
Rippl is working to provide specialized senior behavioral care that focuses on four main areas — quality, access, convenience and equity — Engskov said. The startup has not yet begun to deliver care, but it is working to build its network of caregivers with the hopes of launching in the next few months in Seattle, he added.
The care model involves a nurse practitioner and a licensed social worker who will provide care for patients in their homes. Most of this care will be virtual, but Rippl also has a ground team that can go to patients’ homes. Patients will enjoy 24/7 access to care online, by phone or in their homes, according to Engskov.
“We’re starting as fee-for-service as we build our first network, but our ambition is certainly to build a path to value-based care,” he said “Because we are confident that is the only way to really provide care in a holistic way that meets the goals of having better access, higher quality and much better equity. We hope to work for Medicare Advantage plans, accountable care organizations and other risk-bearing entities.”
While the mental health startup market is certainly crowded with the likes of Talkspace, Lyra Health, Hurdle Health and dozens of others, Engskov said he doesn’t necessarily see these companies as competitors because they don’t focus on geriatric mental healthcare.
“I think our competitor is the status quo,” he said. “The product set we have of crisis management, care navigation coordination and therapy is something no one else is doing.”
Roger Kitterman, managing director at Mass General Brigham Ventures agreed, saying in an email that “geriatric psychiatry is a subspecialty severely underserved in the current behavioral health market that can greatly benefit from focused investment.”
Photo: Rippl Care
