Healthcare is an industry that could use a good shakeup, and that’s exactly what Spring Health’s founders are setting out to do. In 2016, Abhishek Chandra, Adam Chekroud and April Koh launched an “online mental health clinic” as a way to reinvent the industry from the ground up.
Now, with an extra $6 million in new funding, they’re expanding the product and scaling it nationwide.
“We’ll be hiring an amazing team to help us design and build mental health care 2.0,” said Koh, who serves as the company’s CEO. “We’ll be obsessing over patient experience and continuing to prove our value to employers through more expansive and robust case studies. Our long term goal is to create the most comprehensive and accurate personalization algorithms for mental health and eliminate trial and error in care.”
I made it a priority to seek out female VCs who were aligned with me in my vision to build a diverse workplace and who were excited to support a female CEO.”
The platform uses AI to make recommendations for specific treatments, exercise regimens and self help resources based on a user’s input. Then, it suggests mental health professionals from its own provider network — and scheduling an appointment is just a few clicks from there.
“[A big] problem with finding a therapist is that when searching for one, you often just scroll through names and phone numbers, and you need to place multiple phone calls before finding a therapist who will pick up the phone and have room in their schedule,” said Koh. “We offer direct scheduling online with full profiles of our providers so you can see their photos, specialties and even a short message from them to get a sense of who they are.”
The funding was raised entirely by women, with contributions from Rethink Impact, Work-Bench, BBG Ventures, The Partnership Fund for New York City and existing investors RRE Ventures and William K. Warren Foundation.
“[Seeking out female investors was] definitely strategic,” said Koh. “I started fundraising when #MeToo was just dying down and #AllRaise was in full gear. I made it a priority to seek out female VCs who were aligned with me in my vision to build a diverse workplace and who were excited to support a female CEO.”
To date, the company has raised $8 million in funding and is based in the Flatiron.
