Virtual peer-support startup Marigold Health has raised $11 million in Series A funding. 

Marigold Health hires peer specialists and recovery coaches and embeds them with partner providers. The Boston-based organization works with outpatient medication-assisted-treatment programs, residential treatment centers and primary care groups. Marigold’s providers can help assist individuals with substance use disorder or mental health concerns.  

Members can access anonymous chat support groups 24/7. Additionally, the platform offers one-to-one support from certified peer or recovery coaches.

“The way I think about peer support is as a distinct psychosocial intervention,” Shrenik Jain, founder and CEO of Marigold Health, said at BHB’s VALUE conference. “A therapist is someone who’s been really well trained to provide a range of interventions, like CBT, DBT. The limitation of a therapist, as it relates to peers, is that a therapist can’t say, ‘when I was depressed, I did this, this and this.’ A peer as someone who has actually received specialized training, in addition to having their own recovery, to really use that recovery in a non-judgmental way to support others.”

The funding announcement comes roughly two years after Marigold closed a $6 million seed funding round.

The round was led by Rock Health and Innospark Ventures with participation from Commonwealth Care Alliance, Wavemaker360, Stand Together Venture Lab, Epsilon Health Investors, Koa Labs, VNS Health Plan and KdT Ventures, according to Rock Health.

Marigold specializes in working with Medicaid and Medicare populations. This could be an opportune time for providers like Marigold working in the space, as the national government has demonstrated a new interest in peer support services. For example, The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid rolled out a new code for principal illness navigation-peer support that defines the role of peers in Medicare.

Additionally, in 2023 federal health agencies released new national model standards for peer support certification.

“In Medicaid, the money’s there, the rates have gone up, plans want to see the service delivered more,” Jain said at VALUE. “And there’s a shortage of actually scalable care delivery models.”

Marigold isn’t the only provider using a peer-support model. Flourished labs provides peer behavioral health support through telehealth. The California-based startup raised $6 million in 2023, according to Axios.

Additionally, firsthand, uses a peer-based model to help forge relationships with people with serious mental illness. In 2023, firsthand raised $28 million in Series A funding.