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When Alex Katz based Two Chairs in 2017, he firmly believed that in-person remedy is the best for behavioral well being.
Two Chairs used know-how — a proprietary matching algorithm — to seek out the very best therapists for its shoppers, however therapies happened primarily inside one of many startup’s half a dozen stylishly designed clinics situated in prime areas all through the San Francisco Bay Space.
However when COVID-19 erupted and the entire world moved on-line, the corporate was compelled to rethink its face-to-face strategy. Whereas Two Chairs now operates no less than one brick-and-mortar web site 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 nearly.
The adaption of the remote-first therapy mannequin has possible helped the corporate to develop sooner (and definitely much less expensively) than it will have had it continued to emphasise seeing sufferers in individual. Two Chairs says its income expanded eight-fold over the past 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 complete 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 without doubt 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 opponents contract with their clinicians. “That permits us to pick therapists that we expect are actually prime quality, after which we are able to prepare them on methods to use measurement-based care,” he defined. Clinicians who use measurement-based care (MBC) might enhance outcomes and scale back prices by assessing sufferers’ progress towards commonplace metrics, however solely a small portion of therapists use MBC of their observe, 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 isn’t the panacea.
“Whereas it has gotten simpler to discover a therapist due to totally different digital platforms, it’s nonetheless simply as exhausting to seek out the precise therapists and actually high-quality care, and that’s the issue we’re making an attempt to resolve,” he mentioned. “We nonetheless have way more demand than we are able to serve.”
Two Chairs will use its new capital to rent extra therapists, develop into new states and enhance its know-how. The corporate presently affords its providers for the value of a co-pay to Aetna and Kaiser Permanente medical insurance holders and prices $226 a session for different people.
As for whether or not AI might at some point exchange 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 an ideal therapist within the room,” he mentioned.
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