Talkiatry, a telepsychiatry company, has secured $130 million in Series C funding, which the company will use for growth and advancing value-based care, it announced on Tuesday.
New York City-based Talkiatry offers online psychiatric and therapy services for children and adults. It treats patients with ADHD, anxiety, bipolar disorder, depression and several other conditions. It has more than 300 full-time psychiatrists across 43 states. The company works with more than 60 health plans, including UnitedHealthcare, Aetna, Blue Cross Blue Shield and Cigna.
The $130 million Series C funding round was led by Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) and included participation from Perceptive Advisors. Debt financing was provided by Banc of California. In total, Talkiatry has raised $245 million, including from Left Lane Capital and blisce.
Andreessen Horowitz chose to invest in Talkiatry because it offers low-cost, quality care, according to Scott Kupor, managing partner of the firm.
“Talkiatry has mainstreamed outcomes-based psychiatric health care and risk-based payment models. The company has built a reputation for providing affordable, high-quality treatment for psychiatric patients while creating robust partnerships with a continually expanding payor network,” Kupor said in a statement.
With the financing, Talkiatry will scale the number of providers working for the company, said Robert Krayn, CEO and co-founder of Talkiatry. It also plans to deepen its partnerships with health systems. In April, the company launched a partnership with HCA Healthcare.
In addition, Talkiatry aims to accelerate its move into value-based care, with a focus on reducing the total cost of care.
“We have a plan to take on more risk from payers and of course, that has larger capital requirements to do so,” Krayn said in an interview. “This is a step towards that direction.”
The fundraising announcement comes at a time when nearly 50 million American adults are battling a mental illness and there aren’t enough psychiatrists to meet the demand. There has also been a growing focus on shifting away from the fee-for-service model to value-based care in order to improve health outcomes.
“If you’re producing great quality and great outcomes, you should be compensated for it,” Krayn said. “But if you miss, you should have downside risks just like the payer does. And that takes a long time to get there. In behavioral health, specifically, proving those outcomes has been difficult because there’s no blood test for depression. I think pioneering value-based care in behavioral health care is something that was incredibly important to us.”
Looking ahead, Talkiatry aims to form deeper partnerships with insurers and provide a wider array of behavioral health services, Krayn added.
Other companies in the virtual mental health space include Brightside, Headspace and Talkspace.
Photo: StockFinland, Getty Images
