Digital behavioral health company SilverCloud, which makes an online platform of mental health and wellbeing programs for health systems and healthcare organizations, has raised $8.1 million in a round led by B Capital Group, the venture capital firm founded by Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin. ACT Ventures, Investec Ventures and AIB Seed Capital fund also contributed.
The SilverCloud platform offers 22 programs for conditions including anxiety, depression, stress, the emotional impact of chronic illnesses and eating disorders. The modular programs can be accessed via laptop, tablet or smartphone, and users are encouraged to complete a 40-minute session once per week over an eight to 10 week period.
The new funding will be used to expand commercial partnerships in the two regions, hire more people for commercial, development and clinical teams, and work towards publishing more clinical research.
"This new investment enables us to drive forward with our commitment to evolve our health platform and address the ever-increasing global need in behavioral healthcare,” SilverCloud CEO and Cofounder Ken Cahill said in a statement. “We believe that technology is the enabler to address the biggest healthcare challenge of this century, maximizing clinical delivery while enhancing patient access and choice, through the ability to engage with therapy at a time that fits into diverse lifestyles and through devices that are a part of our everyday lives."
Cahill also mentioned the company is working to establish itself as a model of how to deliver behavioral healthcare, a market that he cited as worth an estimated $440 billion in the United States alone. Currently, the platform is used in over 120 healthcare organizations across North America and Europe, including the UK National Health Services, and SilverCloud is focused on driving more commercial partnerships.
"We chose B Capital to lead our Series A because of their healthcare knowledge and relationships, and due to their partnership with The Boston Consulting Group, which has opened doors for us to new commercial partners in the US," Cahill said.
Just this week, San Francisco-based behavioral health startup Joyable announced it would lay off half its staff and pivot from direct-to-consumer to enterprise employee wellness, demonstrating the difficulty of finding a good business model in the mental health app market.
On top of expanding partnerships, the new investment will also enable SilverCloud to explore new areas including personal health and activity monitoring devices, with the goal of ultimately creating a more integration across each individual’s physical and behavioral healthcare.
"SilverCloud Health is redefining access to quality, outcomes-based care for hard-to-treat and high cost behavioral health populations,” Gavin Teo, Partner at B Capital Group said in a statement.”Their digital health platform is enabling new ways for provider systems and pharma companies to personalize therapeutic delivery to the individual patient, which is a building block for clinically validated, value driven care. B Capital is thrilled to be the lead investor in SilverCloud Health at such an exciting time in their growth."
