New York City-based telepsychiatry startup Talkiatry Management Services announced the closing of $37 million in funding on Thursday that will fuel the company’s national expansion.
This completes its Series A funding round with an additional $17 million from New York City-based Left Lane Capital.
The company provides remote psychiatric services and makes it a point to highlight that all its clinicians are W-2 employees. A more common practice for telehealth-focused companies is to rely on contractors for episodic virtual visits.
“Talkiatry has been successful in demonstrating our value and commitment to our insurance partners who are rewarding our approach of high-quality and responsible healthcare with national insurance contracts that cover over 200 million lives,” Robert Krayn, CEO and co-founder of Talkiatry, said in a news release. “Our team is focused on executing on the needs of our psychiatrists and insurance partners.”
Krayn founded the company with Dr. Georgia Gaveras, Talkiatry’s chief medical officer, in 2019. Talkiatry saw its first patient in April 2020. The company has grown from an initial group of five psychiatrists to employing 140 psychiatrists. In total, the company employs about 190 clinicians, including psychiatrists.
The release states that 83% of the psychiatrists in Talkiatry’s pipeline actively applied to join the team. The U.S. faces a steep supply-demand imbalance for psychiatrists, the highest trained but also most in-demand providers in behavioral health.
“Talkiatry has quietly executed on provider acquisition better than any other player in the mental health space,” Jason Fiedler, partner at Left Lane Capital, said in the release. “We’re excited to proactively double down on our investment given how well Talkiatry has performed and the reputation they are building.”
The company also announced that it hired Samson Walla as its vice president of operations, who joins Talkiatry from the head of mid-Atlantic rides for Uber Technologies Inc. (NYSE: UBER). At Talkiatry, Walla will focus on expanding the current business model nationally, as well as expanding business lines, the release states.
“As Talkiatry experiences hyper-growth and rapid national expansion, maintaining high-quality standards is our biggest priority,” Gaveras said in the release. “Samson’s exceptional track record in a high growth and complex industry is a great complement to our team’s deep healthcare experience and timed perfectly with this next phase of our evolution.”
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