Behavioral health tech company Array Behavioral Care closed a $25 million funding round led by CVS Health Ventures, the investment arm of health care giant CVS Health Corp. (NYSE: CVS).
On top of providing capital for scaling efforts, the funding round brings Array Behavioral Care closer to CVS Health. Array has previously partnered with CVS to provide care for certain Aetna health plan members.
“As CVS Health drives more innovation into care delivery, we look forward to working with Array to enhance access that complements our existing services in new ways,” Cara McNulty, president of behavioral health and mental well-being for CVS Health, said in a news release.
Dr. David Fairchild, senior vice president and chief medical officer of retail health for CVS Health, will join Array’s board of directors as part of the round.
Array Behavioral Care provides virtual care in business-to-business arrangements with other health care providers such as hospitals and clinics.
CVS Health is a new investor. Existing investors not named in the release also contributed to the funding round. Previous investors include Wells Fargo Strategic Capital, Health Velocity Capital, Harbour Point Capital, HLM Venture Partners,
OCA Ventures and OSF Healthcare.
Wells Fargo served as Array’s advisor on the transaction.
Array Behavioral Care was founded in 1999 and is one of the largest and most mature behavioral health tech companies in the industry. Today, about 90 million Americans have access to Array’s services across all 50 states, the release states.
“Our practice has always focused on helping provide patients the care they need, when and where they need it, without sacrificing quality,” Dr. James Varrell, executive chief medical officer and co-founder of Array Behavioral Care, said in the release. “It’s clear that tele-behavioral care is one of the most meaningful ways to address the clinician shortage and mental health crisis.”
About 158 million Americans live in areas assessed as having a shortage of behavioral health practitioners, U.S. Health Resources & Services Administration data show. What providers are in those shortage areas are only able to meet about 28% of the need for mental health services.
The investment continues CVS Health’s embrace of behavioral health from several angles. It is especially open to embracing partnerships with behavioral health tech companies. However, it is taking an omnichannel approach to behavioral health — enabling through its subsidiaries in-person clinical visits, virtual visit and digital interactions.
CVS Health Ventures invested in the suicide prevention digital therapeutic company Oui Therapeutics’s $26 million funding round. At the conference HLTH, McNulty said CVS Health considers over 500 potential partners in a year and holds quarterly “shark tank-like” partner selection processes.
CVS Health in October inked a major deal with the telehealth company Amwell to provide its new virtual primary care offering, which includes on-demand behavioral health services.
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