When Alex Katz founded Twochairs in 2017, he strongly believed that in-person therapy is most effective for behavioral health.
Twochairs used technology (proprietary matching algorithms) to find the best therapist for clients, but treatment was primarily delivered through the startup's six stylishly designed clinics in prime locations in the San Francisco Bay Area. It was done in one of the.
But when COVID-19 hit and the entire world moved online, the company was forced to rethink its in-person approach. Twochairs currently operates at least one brick-and-mortar location in each of three states: California, Washington, and Florida, but the majority of his 500-plus therapists at the company treat clients virtually. We are doing
Adopting a remote-first care model may have helped the company grow faster (and certainly be cheaper) than it would have if it continued to emphasize in-person patient visits. Two Chairs says its revenue has grown eight times his over the past three years.
On Tuesday, the company announced $72 million in Series C equity and debt financing led by Anpro and Fifth Down Capital, bringing Two Chairs' total funding to $103 million. Anpro also led the company's $22.5 million Series B in August 2019. A minority debt component of the latest capital was provided by Bridge Bank.
Twochairs is one of the latest treatment startups to raise significant funding. Last week, Grow Therapy, a three-way mental health platform for therapists, payers, and patients, raised $88 million in a Series C round led by Sequoia.
Katz said the main difference between his company and other virtual behavioral health platforms, including Talkspace and Teladoc-owned BetterHelp, is that Twochairs employs “the vast majority” of therapists, whereas competitors He says that most of them have contracts with clinicians. “This allows us to choose therapists that we think are really high quality and train them how to use measurement-based care,” he explained. Katz said clinicians using measurement-based care (MBC) have the potential to improve outcomes and reduce costs by evaluating patient progress against standard metrics, but It is said that only a small number of therapists use MBC.
The use of teletherapy by independent clinicians, established institutions, and startups like TwoChair is helping to solve the U.S. mental health professional shortage, but online psychotherapy is not a panacea, Katz said. says.
“While it has become easier to find a therapist thanks to various digital platforms, it is still just as difficult to find the right therapist and truly high-quality care, and that is what we are trying to solve. It’s a problem,” he said. “There is still more demand than we can meet.”
Two Chairs will use the new funding to hire more therapists, expand into new states and improve its technology. The company currently offers co-pay services to Aetna and Kaiser Permanente health insurance holders and charges other individuals $226 per session.
As for whether AI could one day replace mental health professionals, and therefore make businesses like Two Chairs even more effective, Katz wonders if it will be possible soon. I wasn't sure. “This is a very human, emotionally driven job, and it's the only thing possible.” [to do well] “We have great therapists in the room,” he said.