When Alex Katz based Two Chairs in 2017, he firmly believed that in-person remedy is the simplest for behavioral well being.
Two Chairs used expertise — a proprietary matching algorithm — to search out the very best therapists for its shoppers, however therapies passed off primarily inside one of many startup’s half a dozen stylishly designed clinics situated in prime places all through the San Francisco Bay Space.
However when COVID-19 erupted and the entire world moved on-line, the corporate was pressured to rethink its face-to-face method. Whereas Two Chairs now operates at the least one brick-and-mortar website in every of the three states — California, Washington and Florida — it serves, the vast majority of the corporate’s greater than 500 therapists deal with shoppers just about.
The adaption of the remote-first therapy mannequin has probably helped the corporate to develop quicker (and positively much less expensively) than it could have had it continued to emphasise seeing sufferers in individual. Two Chairs says its income expanded eight-fold during the last three years.
On Tuesday, the corporate introduced a $72 million Sequence C fairness and debt financing led by Amplo and Fifth Down Capital, bringing Two Chairs whole funding to $103 million. Amplo additionally led the corporate’s $22.5 million Sequence B in August 2019. The debt portion, which comprised the minority of the most recent capital, was supplied by Bridge Financial institution.
Two Chairs is likely one of the newest remedy startups to boost substantial funding rounds. Final week, Develop Remedy, a three-sided psychological well being platform for therapists, payers and sufferers, raised an $88 million Sequence C spherical led by Sequoia.
Katz says that the first distinction between his firm and different digital behavioral well being platforms, together with Talkspace and Teladoc-owned BetterHelp, is that Two Chairs employs the “overwhelming majority” of its therapists whereas most rivals contract with their clinicians. “That allows us to pick out therapists that we expect are actually prime quality, after which we will prepare them on find out how to use measurement-based care,” he defined. Clinicians who use measurement-based care (MBC) might enhance outcomes and cut back prices by assessing sufferers’ progress in opposition to normal metrics, however solely a small portion of therapists use MBC of their follow, based on Katz.
Availability of distant remedy from impartial clinicians, established establishments and startups like Two Chairs has been serving to remedy the scarcity of psychological well being professionals within the U.S., however Katz says that on-line psychotherapy just isn’t the panacea.
“Whereas it has gotten simpler to discover a therapist due to completely different digital platforms, it’s nonetheless simply as onerous to search out the correct therapists and actually high-quality care, and that’s the issue we’re making an attempt to unravel,” he stated. “We nonetheless have way more demand than we will serve.”
Two Chairs will use its new capital to rent extra therapists, increase into new states and enhance its expertise. The corporate presently gives its providers for the worth of a co-pay to Aetna and Kaiser Permanente medical health insurance holders and expenses $226 a session for different people.
As for whether or not AI might in the future substitute psychological well being professionals, and subsequently make a enterprise like Two Chairs much more efficient, Katz wasn’t so certain it’s doable anytime quickly. “It’s such a human, emotionally pushed job, and that’s solely doable [to do well] with a terrific therapist within the room,” he stated.
