Spring forward: Mental health benefits company nabs $71M, propels to $2.5B valuation

Spring Health is bounding ahead, buoyed by strong growth and a fresh $71 million funding round.

The seven-year-old company, which offers digital mental health care and navigation services, said the funding round boosted its valuation to $2.5 billion, Spring Health’s highest valuation ever, executives said in a blog post earlier this week.

The company did not disclose the investors participating in the round but noted that investors were "eager to double down by increasing their ownership" in Spring Health.

Tiger Global, Northzone, RRE Ventures, Rethink Impact, Work-Bench, the William K. Warren Foundation, SemperVirens, Able Partners and True Capital Ventures have previously backed Spring Health.

The fresh capital comes less than two years after the company closed a $190 million series C funding round. In total, the company has raised more than $370 million in venture funding.

Executives said in the blog post that Spring Health planned to continue to invest in its services alongside its "path to profitability." 

The employer- and payer-focused mental health provider has grown its reach to more than 5 million covered lives, executives said in a blog post earlier this week. Spring Health works with health plans and more than 800 companies, from startups to multinational Fortune 500 corporations Microsoft, The Hershey Company, JB Hunt, Bumble and Fujifilm, Adam Chekroud, Ph.D., co-founder and president of Spring Health, told Fierce Healthcare in an exclusive interview back in March.

The company has scaled up its solution to meet growing demand for mental health support, and business has been propelled by 270% revenue growth in 2022, Chekroud said.

Spring Health doubled its head count in 2022, executives said. Spring Health also has expanded through acquisitions. In May, the company bought family wellness-focused startup Weldon.

Founded in 2016, Spring Health offers what it calls "precision mental healthcare" that matches each employee to the most effective care for them. The solution includes mindfulness and meditation, care navigation, coaching, therapy and medication management.

Spring Health focuses on tracking care outcomes, an approach that is generally lacking among most mental health providers, according to Brown. The company's data reveal that its workplace mental heath program delivers clinical and financial outcomes, according to a peer-reviewed study published last year in JAMA Network Open.

The three-year study found nearly 70% of participants showed improved mental health, fewer missed workdays, increased productivity and less likelihood of leaving their jobs. 

Back in September 2021, when it raised $190 million, Spring Health was focused on growth plans to take the company global and expand its solution to serve employees' entire families. The acquisition of Weldon added more family-focused behavioral health services to help families deal with sleep, behavior, conflicts, grief, development and neurodiversity issues.

Traditional workplace mental health programs suffer from low sign-ups, poor access to care and a lack of care outcome tracking. Spring Health is focused on disrupting this model, Chekroud told Fierce Healthcare last month, adding mental health needs to remain top of mind for employers and their workforces in 2023.