Octave Secures $20 Million in Series B Funding to Expand Mental Healthcare Access
Octave, an innovator in outcomes-focused behavioral health, today announced that it has raised $20 million in Series B funding, bringing its total raised to $34 million. The round was led by Health Velocity Capital, and joined by Cigna Ventures as well as existing investors Greycroft, Obvious Ventures, Company Ventures and Felicis Ventures. The company plans to use the funding to support technology and clinical innovation and further expand its business operations to give more people access to high-quality mental health care.
Octave also announced the addition of Renee Schneider, PhD, VP of Clinical Service Design, and Golee Abrishami, PhD, VP of Clinical Care, to lead an expanding provider team to meet growing demand. Both are clinical psychologists and experienced leaders in designing and implementing high-quality care models at scale.
Schneider previously was VP of Clinical Quality at Lyra Health, where she oversaw a large provider network and processes related to the delivery of evidence-based care. As VP of Clinical Service Design, she will be responsible for Octave's intake and triage processes, how it defines and measures clinical quality, and the development of new coaching and therapy programs.
“I gravitated to Octave's mission to increase access to high-quality behavioral healthcare,” Schneider said. “I look forward to further developing evidence-based programs that can produce meaningful outcomes for clients and also demonstrate the value for payers to expand coverage.”
Abrishami joins Octave from Kaiser Permanente, where she served as Director of Psychiatry across San Francisco, managing a multidisciplinary behavioral health department. As VP of Clinical Care, Abrishami will oversee provider teams across its clinics and scale Octave’s programs to meet the growing demand for services with a focus on provider sustainability and care quality.
“High-quality mental healthcare starts with great providers,” Abrishami said. “I’m excited about Octave’s commitment to provider well-being and sustainability, and how that can translate into better client outcomes.”
Strong Growth Amid Pandemic Challenges
The news comes after a strong year of growth for Octave, in which the company tripled the number of clients it served amid the COVID-19 pandemic and improved access to high-quality services in multiple ways:
Shift to Virtual: The company successfully moved its San Francisco and New York practices online in response to COVID-19, and also launched an exclusively virtual therapy and coaching practice that will be available post-pandemic.
Commitment to Outcomes: Octave’s care model demonstrated a 37% reduction in depression reported by therapy clients, and a 52% decrease in stress reported by coaching clients.
Geographic Expansion: The company has begun a rapid expansion across the state of California, and has plans to enter several new markets in 2022.
“The Octave team met the challenges of 2020 with so much resilience. While we were able to expand our virtual care offering and launch several specialized programs in response to the unique challenges of COVID-19, our focus remains on providing high-quality mental healthcare more equitably by working with insurance,” said Sandeep Acharya, Co-Founder and CEO of Octave. “We’re continuing to see strong demand for our unique approach to mental healthcare, and I’m excited to work with our new partners at Health Velocity Capital and Cigna Ventures to continue our growth and give more people access to the care they need.”
“The pandemic has highlighted the need for access to mental health services immediately, and unfortunately, into the unforeseeable future. Octave provides consumers availability to high-quality clinicians that accept insurance, and provides payers a strong network of providers that can meaningfully increase access without increasing costs,” said Saurabh Bhansali, a partner at Health Velocity Capital and Octave board member. “We were impressed by the Octave team’s passion to raise the bar in measurement-based care and to address a growing national mental health crisis with a consumer-friendly, payer-friendly model.”
Octave launched its evidence-based therapy and coaching practice in New York in 2018, and now serves clients across California and New York. The company offers in-person and virtual coaching, individual, relationship and group therapy.