Headspace and Ginger merge to expand and scale up digital mental health

Head­space and Gin­ger are merg­ing to form Head­space Health (TechCrunch):

Med­i­ta­tion app Head­space this morn­ing announced plans to merge with on-demand men­tal health ser­vice Gin­ger. Bar­ring unfore­seen reg­u­la­to­ry road­blocks, the two com­pa­nies will com­bine to form Head­space Health. The new orga­ni­za­tion would sport a com­bined val­ue of $3 bil­lion and a head­count of more than 800.

The merg­er comes dur­ing accel­er­at­ed usage of both par­ties, as a seem­ing­ly end­less pan­dem­ic has put a strain on men­tal health across the globe and many have turned to vir­tu­al solu­tions to address the grow­ing problem.

… Gin­ger announced a $50 mil­lion Series D rough­ly one year ago and a $100 mil­lion Series E this March, bring­ing its total fund­ing north of $220 mil­lion. Head­space, mean­while, has raised $216 mil­lion, cour­tesy of last year’s $100.7 mil­lion Series C. Head­space is one of the top glob­al med­i­ta­tion apps, along with chief com­peti­tor, Calm. The new com­pa­ny would find it push­ing well beyond its cur­rent mind­ful­ness focus to, “pro­vide the full spec­trum of proven, effec­tive vir­tu­al sup­port – from mind­ful­ness and med­i­ta­tion, to text-based behav­ioral health coach­ing, to video-based ther­a­py and psy­chi­a­try – for all types of patient populations.”

The Announcement:

Gin­ger and Head­space Will Merge to Meet Esca­lat­ing Glob­al Demand for Men­tal Health Sup­port (press release):

Head­space, a glob­al leader in mind­ful­ness and med­i­ta­tion, and Gin­ger, a leader in on-demand men­tal health­care, today announced they have entered into a defin­i­tive agree­ment to merge. The com­bined enti­ty, Head­space Health, will offer the world’s most acces­si­ble and com­pre­hen­sive dig­i­tal men­tal health and well­be­ing plat­form … Accord­ing to the World Health Orga­ni­za­tion, close to 1 bil­lion peo­ple world­wide live with a men­tal dis­or­der, and more than 75% of peo­ple world­wide with men­tal, neu­ro­log­i­cal, and sub­stance use dis­or­ders receive no treat­ment for their con­di­tion at all. In a recent study, near­ly half of adults in the U.S. report­ed symp­toms of depres­sion or anx­i­ety dur­ing the pan­dem­ic. In the work­place, both employ­ees and their employ­ers pay the price: Research from the Amer­i­can Psy­chi­atric Asso­ci­a­tion shows that employ­ees with unre­solved depres­sion expe­ri­ence a 35% reduc­tion in pro­duc­tiv­i­ty, result­ing in a $210 bil­lion annu­al eco­nom­ic loss in the U.S. due to absen­teeism, reduced pro­duc­tiv­i­ty, and med­ical costs.

“We are wit­ness­ing a men­tal health cri­sis unlike any­thing we’ve expe­ri­enced in our life­times, yet the major­i­ty of men­tal health­care today is nei­ther broad­ly acces­si­ble nor afford­able,” said CeCe Morken, CEO of Head­space. “Togeth­er, as Head­space Health, we will address the sys­temic chal­lenges of access and afford­abil­i­ty in a fun­da­men­tal­ly dif­fer­ent way by cre­at­ing the world’s most holis­tic, scal­able, and effec­tive men­tal health and well­be­ing company.”

The News in Context:

• Med­i­ta­tion app Head­space rais­es $93 mil­lion in equi­ty and debt to accel­er­ate clin­i­cal val­i­da­tion and geo­graph­ic expansion
• The land­scape of dig­i­tal men­tal health apps: huge unmet needs, qual­i­ty con­cerns, app stores asked to ensure transparency
• The Nation­al Acad­e­my of Med­i­cine (NAM) shares dis­cus­sion paper to help empow­er 8 bil­lion minds via the eth­i­cal adop­tion of dig­i­tal men­tal health and neurotech
• Ten neu­rotech­nolo­gies about to trans­form brain enhance­ment & health