This morning telehealth giant Amwell snapped up digital mental health company SilverCloud Health and fellow virtual care company Conversa Health for a combined price of $320 million in cash and stocks. 

Now based in Boston, Silvercloud was originally a Trinity College Dublin spinout. The startup works with providers and payers to deliver digital mental health programs for common behavioral health conditions. According to the company, its programs incorporate cognitive behavioral therapy, mindfulness and positive psychology into its modules. 

The modules include videos, quizzes, and patient engagement content. Patients are able to use journaling, mood monitoring, activity scheduling tool in the app. SilverCloud has raised more than €25.5 million from investors to date. 

Meanwhile, Conversa has created a platform that can automate patient interactions. Specifically, it is able to help monitor, assess and communicate with patients. The company works with health systems to assess high-risk patients. This comes less than a year after Conversa scored $8 million in Series B funding, bringing the company’s total funding pot to over $34 million. 

WHY IT MATTERS 

According to Amwell, the latest acquisitions are set to help the company expand its platform offerings, and grow in new markets. Specifically, the company will be able to grow its “digital care workflows and programs to improve patient engagement and care team reach.” 

The company said that this will also help it expand its client base. Conversa, for example, has been deployed in several large health systems, including Northwell Health, UCSF Health and UNC Health. Additionally, SilverCloud recently inked a deal with Ireland’s Health Service Executive (HSE), which makes its service available to users throughout the Republic of Ireland. 

“There is a tremendous unmet need for mental health solutions in today’s world. While SilverCloud Health’s mental health programs have been used to support over 750,000 people to date, in partnership with more than 300 organizations globally including The Irish Health Service Executive and over 80% of the U.K.’s NHS mental health services, our work has only just begun,” Ken Cahill, CEO of SilverCloud Health, said in a statement.

“We are delighted that the next chapter will be from the Amwell platform. The reach of Amwell provides us with the access and resources to become the true global leader of digital mental health care delivery. The SilverCloud team has worked tirelessly for over a decade, and today becoming part of Amwell enables us to scale against our vision of effective mental healthcare for all.”

THE LARGER TREND 

Amwell officially went public in September of 2020 for $18 per share. Since launching the company’s stock has had a rocky road. In Q1 the company reported growth in year-over-year revenue, but missed its revenue expectation, causing its stock to take a hit. Currently, the stock is being traded for $11.60. 

It's clear that M&A is a key part of Amwell’s future strategy. When MobiHealthNews asked Amwell CEO, Dr. Roy Schoenberg, about potential M&As in January, he noted that the future of the company will be about expanding what telehealth can do. 

“One thing I will say from a market standpoint is that ...– the new understanding of what telehealth can do – the opportunities for companies and innovation come together to create 'one plus one equals three' has never been larger,” he said at the beginning of 2021. 

"How do you bring all of these to create a way of enveloping patients at home so they can safely stay there, be comfortable, their clinicians feel comfortable, their families feel comfortable? This requires a village. It’s more than one company, and that’s where the opportunity for a lot of M&A and partnerships comes in.”

This isn’t the first time Amwell has dipped into the behavioral health M&A space. In 2019 the company acquired Aligned Telehealth, a vendor of telepsychiatry and behavioral health that services providers and payers. 

The digital mental health space is currently seeing a flood of investor interest. According to Rock Health in 2020 investors poured $2.4 billion of digital health funding into behavioral health companies.