On-demand mental health service provider Ginger raises $50 million

Ginger, a provider of on-demand mental healthcare services, has raised $50 million in a new round of funding.

The new capital comes as interest and investment in mental health and wellness has emerged as the next big area of interest for investors in new technology and healthcare services companies.

Mental health startups saw record deal volumes in the second quarter of 2020 on the heels of rising demand caused by the COVID-19 epidemic, according to the data analysis firm CB Insights. More than 55 companies raised rounds of funding over the quarter, even though deal amounts declined 15%, to $491 million. That's still nearly half a billion dollars invested into mental health in one quarter alone.

What started in 2011 as a research-based company spun out of work from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has become one of the largest providers of mental health services primarily through employer-operated health insurance plans.

Through Ginger's services, patients have access to a care coordinator that is the first point of entry into the company's mental health plans. That person is a trained behavioral health coach - typically someone with a master's degree in psychology with a behavioral health coaching certificate from schools like Duke, UCLA, Michigan or Columbia and 200 hours of training provided by Ginger itself.

These health coaches provide the majority of care that Ginger's patients receive. For more serious conditions, Ginger will bring in specialists to coordinate care or provide access to medications to alleviate the condition, according to the company's chief executive officer, Russell Glass.

Ginger began offering its on-demand care services in 2016 and counts tens of thousands of active users on the platform. The company charges companies a fee for access to its services on a per-employee, per-month basis and provides access to mental health services to hundreds of thousands of employees through corporate benefit plans, Glass said.

More than 200 companies, including Delta Air Lines, Sanofi, Chegg, Domino's, SurveyMonkey and Sephora, pay Ginger to cost-efficiently provide employees with high-quality mental healthcare. Ginger members can access virtual therapy and psychiatry sessions as an in-network benefit through the company's relationships with leading regional and national health plans, including Optum Behavioral Health, Anthem California and Aetna Resources for Living, according to a statement.

Our entire mission here is to break the supply/demand imbalance and provide far more care," said Glass in an interview. Ultimately we want Ginger to be available to help anybody who has a need. Being accessible to anybody, anywhere, is an important part of the strategy. That means direct-to-consumer will be a direction we head in."

For now, the company will use the money to build out its partner ecosystem with companies like Cigna, an investor in the company's latest $50 million round. Ginger will also look to getting government payers to reach more people. Eventually direct-to-consumer could become a larger piece of the business as the company drives down costs of care.

It's also investing in automation and natural language processing to automate care pathways and personalizing patient care using machine learning.

The company's $50 million Series D round was co-led by Advance Venture Partners and Bessemer Venture Partners, with additional participation from Cigna Ventures and existing investors such as Jeff Weiner, executive chairman of LinkedIn, and Kaiser Permanente Ventures. To date, Ginger has raised roughly $120 million.

Even as Ginger is working through the existing network of employer benefit plans and standalone insurance providers to offer its mental health services, other startups are raising money to offer employer-provided mental health and wellness plans. SonderMind is working to make it easier for independent mental health professionals to bill insurers, AbleTo helps employers screen for undiagnosed mental health conditions and SilverLight Health partners with organizations to digitally monitor and manage mental health care.

Meanwhile, other startups are going direct-to-consumer with a flood of offerings around mental health. Well-financed, billion-dollar-valued companies like Ro and Hims are offering mental health and wellness packages to customers, while Headspace has both a consumer-facing and employer benefit offering. And upstart companies like Real are focusing on providing care specifically for women.

With its funding round, Ginger is adding David ibnAle, a founding partner at Advance Venture Partners (AVP), which is the investment firm behind S.I. Newhouse's family-owned media and technology holding company, Advance; and the digital health investment guru Steve Kraus from Bessemer Venture Partners.

AVP invests in companies that are using technology to tackle large-scale, global challenges and transform traditional businesses and business models," said David ibnAle, founding partner of Advance Venture Partners. Ginger is doing just that. We are excited to partner with an exceptional team to help make high-quality, on-demand mental health care a reality for millions of more people around the world."