David Ebersman

Lyra Health, the behavioral health-focused startup launched this summer by David Ebersman, former CFO of Facebook and Genentech, has raised $35 million. Greylock Partners and existing investor Venrock led the round, with additional participation from existing investor Castlight Health, and new investors Providence Health & Services, Breyer Capital, and Origin Capital Management.

The company will work with employers and health plans to address the population of people with underdiagnosed behavioral health conditions by matching patients with the best available mental health treatment for their clinical needs and preferences. The platform will also allow health plans and employers to check in with patients over time to make sure their treatment is working, and will even connect them with a human care manager for support and assistance. Ebersman told MobiHealthNews this past summer that he expects patients will interact with the platform through a combination of phone calls and mobile apps.

The new funding will be used to get Lyra Health's technology into the hands of its first health plan and enterprise customers, a handful of whom will have it deployed by the first quarter of 2016. Their hope is to do a full commercial deployment in 2017.

"Lyra Health is tackling a massive and challenging problem. This company will have a huge impact on both the quality of life for people suffering with mental health issues, and the bottom line for employers,” James Slavet, partner at Greylock Partners and board member for Lyra Health, said in a statement. “Lyra’s founding team is uniquely positioned to fix a broken mental health care system in a way that helps millions of Americans — and lowers overall health care costs for the organizations and plans that care for them.”

When Castlight invested $3.1 million in the company in June, they announced that Lyra Health's offering will be paired with one of Castlight’s newer features, called Castlight Elevate, which aims to help employees research behavioral health services and make treatment choices.

"With this partnership, we will be able to leverage Castlight’s platform for distribution capabilities to accelerate the introduction of our technology-enabled service to some of the country’s largest employers," Ebersman said at the time.