Pediatric behavioral health provider Hazel Health has announced its second acquisition this year.

Hazel Health has acquired fellow youth mental health startup Little Otter. This comes just months after the provider closed a deal to purchase youth mental health startup BeMe Health.

Little Otter provides coaching, therapy and psychiatric services for children with mental health challenges and their families It was founded in 2020 by mother-daughter team Dr. Helen Egger, a child psychiatrist, and Rebecca Egger, a technology and product development professional. Helen is also the chief medical and scientific officer for the company, while Rebecca is the CEO.

The deal to acquire Little Otter “will unite the two organizations, broaden capabilities and deepen the impact we can have on the children and families we serve,” the spokesperson said.

However, that’s not the only major change at Hazel Health.

The company has a new CEO: board member and Cityblock Health founding CEO Iyah Romm.

First reported by Axios, Romm told the publication that he expects the company to continue its acquisitive ways. A company spokesman said that the company is now focused on the integration of Little Otter. 

Hazel Health has not itself announced the appointment of Romm to the CEO role; it’s not clear when he took the role. It announced in February that Romm joined the board of directors. 

Acquisitions have been a key growth strategy for the provider. As it also acquired the youth mental health startup BeMe Health earlier in the year.

The news of the BeMe Health acquisition has not been previously announced to the public. In June, Dr. Nicoletta Tessler, CEO and co-founder of BeMe Health, said on social media that she was named the president of Lifepoint Behavioral Health, a division of the health care system Lifepoint Health. Tessler did not respond to a request for comment at that time. The company raised about $12.5 million in August 2024 for a Series A round.

Hazel Health came into 2025 with a lot of momentum. And it has only accelerated.

The company has raised at least $86 million, according to public disclosures, with its most recent round — a $51.5 million Series C1 round — closing in 2022. Earlier in the year, Hazel Health became an approved vendor for public schools in Georgia, an official provider to Texas ESC Region 1, an approved vendor in Virginia and a partner to the Chicago Public Schools district.

Despite Hazel’s growth strategy, earlier in the month, Behavioral Health Business reported that the company laid off 11% of its staff. At that time, the company told BHB that the cuts were required to sustain its growth and would make room for the use of automating tech such as AI. More recently, the company has connected the acquisition of fellow youth mental health startup Little Otter with this effort.

“To support our goal of continuing to scale high-quality, sustainable services, we made some organizational changes … which included role eliminations,” a spokesperson for Hazel Health told BHB. “Changes like this are always hard and contemplated very carefully with our mission as our North Star. No clinical positions were impacted by these changes.”