Big Health, maker of digital health apps targeting poor sleep, worry and anxiety, has announced a $39 million Series B raise.

Gilde Health and Morningside Ventures headlined the funding. Samsung NEXT also participated in the raise, as did prior backers Kaiser Permanente Ventures and Octopus Ventures.

WHAT THEY DO

Big Health's two major digital health products Sleepio and Daylight are digital programs to help users manage poor sleep and anxiety, respectively. Both apps employ cognitive behavioral therapy techniques, and soliciting feedback from the user to deliver personalized content through narration and animations. The company makes these products available to individuals and larger stakeholders such as employers or payers.

“We entered 2020 having doubled our revenues in 2019,” Peter Hames, Big Health cofounder and CEO, said in a statement. “That’s because customers such as Target, Comcast and The Home Depot recognize that our digital therapeutics can fill a growing gap in their portfolio of mental health benefits."

While Sleepio has been available for some time, Big Health only released its second app Daylight in the earlier part of 2019. Not too long after, Sleepio was announced as the first featured product in CVS Health's pharmacy benefit-management digital formulary.

WHAT IT'S FOR

The digital behavioral health company said that the raise will support new product development, as well as growth of its distribution channels and commercialization efforts.

"Mental health was a huge, poorly-addressed problem before the pandemic, but the explosion in unmet need over the last couple months has made it top-of-mind for payers and employers," Hames told MobiHealthNews in an email statement. "Existing telehealth and EAP offerings aren’t equipped for the level of demand we’re seeing right now, and we fill the resulting ‘mental health gap.’ Since March, the population with access to our digital therapeutics has grown by 6 million people, and having this funding means that we can more rapidly expand our product offerings and fulfill our mission of bringing millions back to good mental health."

THE LARGER TREND

Hames' thoughts on rising mental healthcare demands are shared by many, and have led to a handful of new product and service offerings joining the list of more established digital tools for behavioral health across digital health.

Among the more recent developments are companies like Omada offering its mental health program free for a limited time, Heal's new foray into telepsychology, Hims' free group teletherapies, a big funding round for meditation and wellness app Headspace, and a handful of in-development digital psychiatric products given the FDA's blessing.