Talkspace, a telehealth startup that started as a text and phone-based counseling business, connecting patients with a pool of therapists, has raised a Series B round led by Norwest Venture Partners.
In a phone interview with Talkspace Co-founder Roni Frank, she said the new funding would be used to support an expansion of the business to build a virtual group therapy platform geared to college students. The idea is to have a group of up to five connect with a therapist through video conferencing.
Frank said the group therapy areas would include depression, anxiety, stress, substance abuse, and eating disorders. The plan is to also offer this group therapy program to employers.
It’s interesting move because the company’s origins are focused on text-based therapy. Although it has offered video conferencing, the move into group therapy is a big change in a business that claims to attract a lot of new patients who never used therapy before for the very reason that it was anonymous.
The business has raised $28 million in venture capital funding to date, Frank said. It currently has 300,000 people who use its service. “For 50 percent, they are are trying therapy for the first time in their lives,” Frank said.
Its network of therapists includes psychologists, licensed mental health counselors, social workers, marriage and family therapists, and clinical psychologists. It doesn’t provide medication.
In addition to Norwest Venture Partners, Spark Capital, Soft Bank, Metamorphic Ventures and The Time took part in the Series B.
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.
Dr. Linda Sacco also joined Talkspace as its vice president of behavioral health service and will essentially head up its clinical network, Frank said. Sacco previously served as an administrator for behavioral health sciences for 10 years at Barnabas Health.
