Tele-Supervision Platform Designed to Help Therapists Get Licensed Raises $2.2M

Motivo, a tele-supervision platform that helps mental health workers get licenced, has raised $2.2 million in seed funding.

Atlanta-based Cox Enterprises led the funding round, with participation from Techstars, SEI Ventures, ECMC, Great Oaks VC, The Jump Fund, Emmett Partners and Next Wave Impact Fund, along with various angel investors, according to a press release announcing the news.

Motivo aims to make it easier for aspiring to become mental health professionals to complete their clinical supervision requirements. The process, which takes about two years to finish, must be completed before aspiring therapists, counselors, social workers and psychologists can be licensed. 

Motivo CEO and licensed therapist Rachel McCrickard founded the company in 2017 after she faced a daunting commute when completing her supervision hours. Every week for two years, she endured a two-hour commute. 

“Obtaining these hours is more difficult than one might think,” McCrickard said in the press release. “For a therapist, getting your degree is actually the easy part. It’s becoming licensed that is hard.”

While clinical supervision has historically been done in person, a number of states now allow supervision to be completed remotely via secure video, which Motivo boasts. The platform also handles billing and record-keeping for qualified supervisors who sign up to participate.

Investors and advisors are bullish about Motivo’s applications, noting that the platform attempts to solve a problem others have yet to tackle. Specifically, the press release says Motivo could be applied to 12 credential types within healthcare, equating to a $6.5 billion market opportunity.

“We see Motivo as perfectly positioned to capture the therapist credentialing market and to identify lateral healthcare markets that would also benefit from tele-supervision and the Motivo marketplace,” Tim Howe, senior director of corporate strategy and investments at Cox Enterprises and Motivo board member, said in the press release.

Motivo can also be of obvious use in rural America, where behavioral health providers are few and far between. In fact, more than half of all the counties in the U.S. lack mental health providers altogether — and all of those counties are rural. 

By making it easier for professionals in remote areas to become licensed, Motivo aims to improve those disparities.

The company will use its recently raised funding to grow its team, acquire new contracts with mental health agencies and develop partnerships with associations and universities, according to the press release.

Already this year, Motivo has signed contracts with the American Counseling Association and the American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy.