Digital mental health company Tava polished off its Series B funding round, bringing the total raise for this round to $20 million.
Salt Lake City, Utah-based Tava secured $16 million in January and recently secured an additional $4 million in a funding round led by Catalyst Investors. Its existing investors, Peterson Partners, Toba Capital and SpringTide, as well as a new investor, Blue Heron Capital, also participated.
Tava offers its all-in-one mental health platform, which includes an electronic health record (EHR) and practice management software to therapists for free, then works with employers, trade associations and payers to match patients with therapists who use the Tava platform.
The company only accepts commercial insurance plans, including Aetna, BlueCross BlueShield and Humana. Approximately 48 million patients have access to Tava.
Like traditional employee assistance programs (EAPs), patients may receive their first few therapy sessions for free. Unlike traditional EAPs, patients can choose to continue working with their therapist after the initial free sessions.
This ensures that patients can continue to develop relationships with their therapist, according to Dallen Allred, co-founder and CEO of Tava.
“There’s limited clinical evidence that two or three hours of therapy is going to move the needle in any clinically or statistically significant way for someone who has a diagnosable mental health challenge,” Allred told Behavioral Health Business. “If you wanted to stick with that therapist, you could, and you can either use your insurance or your credit card to have that continuity of care.”
Founded in 2019, Tava raised $3 million in its seed funding round, led by Peterson Ventures. The company raised an additional $10 million in Series A funding in 2021, led by Rose Park Advisors.
The newly raised Series B funds will be used to develop an AI note-taking companion for therapists, create relationships with government payers and expand Tava’s provider network, which currently has approximately 1,000 active clinicians.
Tava is poised to continue to grow, Kapil Desai, partner at Catalyst, told BHB in an email.
“Today, most employers still offer traditional EAP programs, which are notorious for low quality and poor availability, or rely on coverage offered through their primary medical plan, which may be subject to a high deductible, can be hard to navigate and may have low provider availability,” Desai said. “We are confident Tava is positioned to take an outsized share of this massive and growing market.”
While the EAP market continues to grow, it is also becoming increasingly crowded, Allred said. The number of players in the industry may be spurred on by increasing expectations for mental health benefits.
A recent poll from the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) found that 90% of American workers say that employer-sponsored mental health coverage is important for workplace culture. Tava is ready to capitalize on this expectation.
“Our vision is for [mental health benefits] to be similar to a 401K or dental insurance, especially as younger millennials and Gen Z’s are entering the workforce,” Allred said.
Employers are primarily on board with providing mental health care benefits. In 2023, 77% of employers planned to improve mental health access in 2024. A new survey found that the most comprehensive EAP plans may be the most attractive to employers, outweighing other factors, including price.
Tava plans to meet this demand by becoming a one-stop shop to streamline the fragmented behavioral health processes.
“It’s one place where, as a clinician, you can go and check all the boxes you need to run your practice,” Allred said.
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