Seattle-based startup Heard, which supports mental health professionals with financial software and services, raised $15 million in new funding.
Heard offers booking, payroll and tax workflow products. Solo practitioners can sign up for $199 per month and group practices for $299 per month, with discounts for annual subscriptions. Heard provides the “financial back office” for mental health professionals, according to a spokesperson.
Heard CEO Andrew Riesen co-founded the company in 2019 with software engineer Victoria Li, bringing in $1.3 million in seed funding in 2021 and a $10 million Series A funding round last year.
The company was not always focused on financial services, said Riesen, who previously worked at an internal incubator inside PwC. Riesen and his team at first aimed to help connect patients with practitioners as a “Bumble for Therapists,” he told GeekWire.
But as they learned more about their potential customers, they found that most therapists readily find patients and acquiring clients was not a big need, said Riesen.
“Instead, they require more time and support to efficiently manage their practices and avoid burnout, which is a significant issue,” he said. Riesen has seen some of these issues first hand, as his wife is a therapist, several close friends are in the field, and he has struggled lifelong with his own mental health, he said in a LinkedIn post.
The 39-employee company will use the funds to scale and automate its products and build up its integration with banking and retirement partners.
Heard recently hired Kristin Kaiser Mulligan, formerly vice president of operations at health tech company Wheel, as chief operating officer, and Brandon Wolf, previously a senior vice president at Maze, as head of support. Brooke Skinner, a former senior director at Seattle cosmetic procedures startup RealSelf, will join Heard in July as vice president of finance and data.
Demand for in-person and online mental healthcare rose during the pandemic, and a host of startups sprung up to support the need.
Funding for mental health tech companies increased from $1.2 billion in 2019 to a record high of $5.5 billion globally in 2021, according to a recent CBRE report. Funding in the sector decreased to $2.6 billion in 2022.
Other mental healthcare startups in the Pacific Northwest include Aiberry, which uses AI to screens for mental health conditions and recently raised $8 million, and 2Morrow, which helps people reach health goals like quitting smoking. Portland, Ore.-based Owl helps automate patient screening and monitoring and provides decision support.
Other companies that provide administrative tools for therapists include New York-based Alma, which helps with billing and insurance integration.
The new funding, which Riesen calls a “Series A-2” round, was led by Headline with participation from GGV and all previous institutional investors, including Footwork, Founders Co-Op, Act One and Heron Rock.
