Alma, a digital behavioral health company that helps providers streamline their business and work with insurers, has raised $130 million in Series D funding. This news comes just months after the startup closed a $90 million round.
Alma is focused on supporting small mental health practices. It does this by helping those businesses set up an infrastructure to accept and contract with insurance plans. The company provides mental health practitioners with teletherapy software, automated billing and scheduling tools. Alma offers provider education and training tools.
The company’s platform also lets patients search for providers.
It has a membership-based business model. Clients pay $125 for a month-to-month membership and are able to keep all fees generated from patient visits, Alma founder and CEO Harry Ritter previously told Behavioral Health Business. The startup charges an additional fee for processing reimbursement claims.
“Alma’s unique provider-first approach to mental health care allows providers to deliver high quality patient care while also making it as easy as possible for them to start and grow their practices,” Ross Devor, a Partner at Thoma Bravo, said in a statement. “Alma is providing tremendous value to key ecosystem participants: increased access for patients, insurance and billing support for providers, and valuable, diverse networks for payers. We look forward to leveraging our significant software and healthcare sector expertise to support the company’s continued growth.”
Founded in 2017, the New York-based company now has more than $220 million in venture funding. Thoma Bravo led the round with participation from Cigna Ventures, Insight Partners, Optum Ventures, Tusk Venture Partners, Primary Venture Partners, and Sound Ventures.
Alma is quickly growing. It now has over 8,000 health providers licensed to practice across 50 states. It also boasts of a diverse pool of therapists. In fact, 40% of providers in their network identify as Black, LatinX or Asian.
The company also named a number of new hires including; LifeStance Health vet Dr. Elisabeth Morray as its next VP of clinical operations, former chief product officer (CPO) at Maven Clinic Erik Lumer as its next CPO and Quartet Health’s former chief compliance officer Chiddy Onyia as Alma’s new general counsel.
This news comes at a time when digital mental health deals have been slowing. Virtual behavioral health companies raised $1.3 billion in the first half of 2022, according to Rock Health. Yet, the majority ($1 billion) was raised in Q1. The mental health sector raised $1.5 billion in the first half of 2021.
Alma isn’t the only digital health company looking to help providers and patients match. Quartet Health, which landed $60 million in December, uses technology to help patients and referring primary care providers get connected to behavioral health services.
Additionally, New York-based Headway built a platform designed to connect patients to mental health providers in their insurance networks. It has raised more than $100 million in venture funding.
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