Muir Wood LLC, a youth behavioral health provider, has secured investment from the private equity firm Avesi Partners.
The Petaluma, California-based provider will use the investment to add new locations and new services. The amount of the investment was not disclosed. It’s also unclear whether or not Avesi Partners has wholly acquired Muir Wood.
Stamford, Connecticut-based Avesi Partners declined to answer Behavioral Health Business’ questions about the deal.
Muir Wood lists seven residential campuses for girls and three residential campuses for boys on its website. It treats mental health and substance use disorders on an in-network basis.
CEO Scott Sowle founded Muir Wood in 2013. Its campuses are concentrated in Northern California.
“As we look to the next chapter of Muir Wood’s growth, Avesi’s commitment to our mission and principled approach to maintaining superior levels of care to our clients and their families made this partnership an easy decision for us,” Sowle said in the release.
Avesi Partners focuses on investing in health care and business services operations that “seek to positively impact as many of the key stakeholders in a given industry vertical as possible,” according to its website. Its current portfolio includes four companies, two of which are behavioral health companies including Muir Wood. The other is behavioral health and I/DD-focused special education provider Point Quest Education.
The firm announced the Point Quest investment in August 2022.
The interest in youth behavioral health as an investment opportunity has grown significantly. One estimate places the increase in investment at nearly 700%. The pandemic highlighted the existing mismatch between the constricted supply of youth-focused services and high demand.
One study of American and French children’s hospital admissions found that anxiety, depression and suicidality admissions increased by 50% from February 2019 to April 2021.
Most of the federal money recently appropriated for mental health initiatives went to school-based or youth-focused initiatives via the omnibus funding bill and the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act passed over the summer.
The startups Vita Health and HelloHero have received venture funding in recent months. HelloHero also treats adults.
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