Four trends accelerating mental health innovation in the COVID/ post-COVID era

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The mon­ey behind men­tal health: How the pan­dem­ic increased inno­va­tion, invest­ment in behav­ioral health care (Fierce Healthcare):

Ear­li­er this month, Mod­ern Health marked a mile­stone few com­pa­nies ever reach: uni­corn status.

With the help of its lat­est $74 mil­lion fund­ing round, the start­up, which serves as a men­tal health ben­e­fits plat­form for employ­ers, topped a $1 bil­lion valuation.

… And while Mod­ern Health was already attract­ing plen­ty of inter­est before the pan­dem­ic, CEO Alyson Wat­son said her com­pa­ny is among those in the behav­ioral health space that have seen what can only be described as a seis­mic shift across the indus­try in the wake of COVID-19. In the first half of 2020 alone, dig­i­tal behav­ioral health star­tups scored $588 mil­lion, rough­ly the annu­al fund­ing for this seg­ment in any pre­vi­ous year, Rock Health wrote in a report last year … That’s trans­lat­ing to some real changes in the indus­try, includ­ing an uptick in invest­ment, that will be felt for years to come. Here’s a look at four of those changes.

  1. Stig­ma has decreased in a big way
  2. The indus­try is get­ting bet­ter about data
  3. Reg­u­la­tions have made it easier
  4. Employ­ers are get­ting seri­ous about it

“If there is any­thing we’ve seen out of this year, it’s real­ly become that fourth pil­lar of ben­e­fits for every employ­er out there. Every­one has med­ical, den­tal and vision. Men­tal health has now real­ly become that fourth pil­lar of ben­e­fits for all employ­ers.” — Alyson Wat­son, CEO and founder of Mod­ern Health

The announcement:

Mod­ern Health rais­es anoth­er $74M to meet employ­ers’ demand for men­tal health ben­e­fits (Mobi­Health News):

San Fran­cis­co-based men­tal health and well­ness plat­form Mod­ern Health has kept its foot on the gas through­out the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic. Today it announced a $74 mil­lion Series D fund­ing round just a few months after a $51 mil­lion Series C closed in Octo­ber and for­mal­ly announced in December.

The new invest­ments peg Mod­ern Health’s life­time fund­ing to more than $170 mil­lion, the com­pa­ny said, and its val­u­a­tion to $1.17 bil­lion … Mod­ern Health works with employ­er-cus­tomers to pro­vide an app-based pack­age of men­tal health ben­e­fits. Employ­ees are first asked to com­plete a sur­vey on their focus areas, con­cerns and cur­rent state of mind, and then are pro­vid­ed with a selec­tion of dig­i­tal pro­grams that address their needs.

These offer­ings address issues such as stress, finan­cial well­be­ing, work per­for­mance, and rela­tion­ship guid­ance, and can be aug­ment­ed with remote coach­ing or with live group or one-on-one therapy.

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