Tava Health, a Salt Lake City-based mental-telehealth provider, has closed $3 million in seed funding. Peterson Ventures led the round.

WHAT THEY DO

Founded and launched just last year, Tava works with employer customers to connect their employees with remote therapy and a personalized treatment plan. Video sessions conducted through the platform are self-scheduled by the patient, and supplemented by secure texting. Tava's provider network covers a range of conditions and issues such as addiction, depression, eating disorders, stress and PTSD, and prescribes mental health medications when appropriate.

“The unfortunate reality is that meeting regularly with a therapist is just as expensive and difficult today as it was decades ago," CEO Dallen Allred said in a statement. "By partnering with employers and removing barriers to care through technology, we’re paving the way for their people to get excellent professional care with unprecedented ease. The modern workforce is beginning to expect a quality mental health benefit as a hallmark of any great employer, and we’re proud to be on the forefront of making this possible.”

According to the company's announcement, in past two months the service has roughly doubled the number of patients it is serving each week. Tava says that it has generally seen utilizations rates between 12% and 15% among its employer customers, but noted that some clients "have experienced more than twice that amount."

WHAT IT'S FOR

The company said that it will be using these funds to expand the service into new geographic markets.

MARKET SNAPSHOT

Stay-at-home orders and work-related stressors have been driving up the demand for mental health services, and no shortage of virtual-based offerings have stepped up to answer the call.

While major telehealth vendors like Teladoc Health and AmWell have each described major call-volume increases across their full range of offerings, others like Heal, Hims, Medici and XRHealth have either launched new mental health-specific telehealth offerings or received new investments amidst growing adoption.

Meanwhile, a few leading digital therapeutics companies have been able to conditionally release unapproved products, thanks to FDA emergency policies designed to increase access to digital mental health resources.

Several other digital health and remote-care services have also stepped up to expand or launch mental health offerings over the past couple of months.

ON THE RECORD

“Even prior to the outbreak of COVID-19, nine out of ten employees wished their employers would do more to support their mental health, recognizing that it leads to greater work productivity and higher job satisfaction,” Randall Lloyd, partner at Peterson Ventures, said in a statement. “These trends are only accelerating with millennial and Gen Z employees, and are unfortunately made more acute by the unique health crisis we face today. Robust mental health assistance will be a critical differentiator for modern employers who want to attract, retain, and get the most out of their employees.”