Talkspace Makes Public Debut on Nasdaq

Months after first announcing its intention to go public via a merger with a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC), Talkspace (Nasdaq: TALK) officially opened for trading Wednesday.

In doing so, it became the first and only pure-play virtual behavioral health company to go public thus far. Its stock closed at $9.19 on its first day of trading, up from its opening price of $8.90.

Headquartered in New York, Talkspace provides a variety of virtual behavioral health services, from therapy to psychiatric prescription management. Talkspace matches users with therapists in their home states, with services available 24/7 via voice, video and text messaging.

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So far, more than 2 million people have used Talkspace since its founding in 2011. Additionally, about 55 million workers are currently covered to receive the company’s services through insurance, employee assistance programs and other network behavioral health paid benefit programs.

Talkspace’s merger with the SPAC Hudson Executive Investment Corp. made its public debut possible. The deal, which closed earlier this month, is expected to give Talkspace $250 million of growth capital.

Growth is something the virtual behavioral health provider knows well, as it reported 144% year-over-year revenue growth in its Q1 earnings. In going public, the company plans to expand even further.

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“As a public company, we believe we will be able to further enhance access to high-quality mental health services, lowering cost and improving clinical outcomes at scale,” Talkspace CEO and co-founder Oren Frank said in a press release. “Mental health is increasingly recognized as an essential need, and we believe Talkspace’s unique ability to treat a wide spectrum of acuities is pivotal to address the vast, unmet and growing demand for behavioral health services in innovative ways. Hudson Executive is an invaluable partner that will bring extensive expertise and relationships to Talkspace and will contribute to advance our mission.”

Upon listing on the Nasdaq, Talkspace had approximately 152 million shares outstanding.

Talkspace’s latest milestone comes just one day after Pear Therapeutics also announced its plans to go public via SPAC. While Pear isn’t a behavioral health provider itself, the company develops prescription digital therapeutics (PDTs) used to treat behavioral health issues. Currently, it has solutions on the market for substance use disorder (SUD) and insomnia, and it plans to add more PDTs for additional conditions in the months and years to come.

Additionally, the news comes just a couple of weeks after LifeStance (Nasdaq: LFST) — one of the nation’s largest outpatient mental health providers — began trading publicly. Those companies join Acadia Healthcare (Nasdaq: ACHC) and Universal Health Services (NYSE: UHS) as those in the behavioral health space that are publicly traded.

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