The bar for behavioral health startups just got higher

Equity

TechCrunch

Entrepreneurship, Business News, News, Business, Technology

4.2 • 372 Ratings

🗓️ 28 August 2021

⏱️ 22 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

After news broke that meditation app Headspace and on-demand mental health care platform Ginger were merging, we couldn't resist hopping on the mics to do a bonus episode. And, because we were in the mood for hot takes, Natasha and Alex held the conversation on Twitter Spaces. The special guests we had on, who we'll get to down below, did not disappoint. It's a quick show, but the tl;dr is that you want to listen if you're curious why a meditation app would get into therapy, the precedent by Lyra Health and Calm, and how consolidation looks for the sector going forward. Here's who helped us understand and contextualize the news: Lux Capital partner Deena Shakir (who is also coming to Disrupt, incidentally) Chrissy Farr of OMERS Ventures (who you may also know as a former CNBC reporter in the healthech space) 7WireVentures' Alyssa Jaffee (who needs her own podcast because she was shining during the Spaces) And, special shout out to Ginger CEO Russell Glass, who joined the Space but wasn't able to come up on stage due to technical difficulties. Twitter Spaces are fun, but the platform is still a bit nascent so goofs can bedevil live production. However, we managed to get some notes from him via email, so let's take a quick look at those: Glass said that he agreed with "what Chrissy Farr and others said about there simply not being enough therapists in the market today to meet the overwhelming demand," adding that there's "real global need today for what Headspace Health can offer - a scaled, comprehensive platform that can truly democratize mental healthcare." He also doubleclicked on the discussing regarding future "meaningful market consolidation," noting that he expects to see it "especially" happen in "areas that address higher acuity care for severe mental illness.” Make sure you are following the podcast on Twitter so that you catch us when we go live. These are meant to be spontaneous pop up shows, so your best bet is to turn on notifications to never miss our Spaces. Ok that's all. Thanks everyone! Credits: Equity is produced by Theresa Loconsolo with editing by Kell. Bryce Durbin is our Illustrator. We'd also like to thank the audience development team and Henry Pickavet, who manages TechCrunch audio products. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello and welcome back to Equity Tech Crunch's venture capital focus
0:13.8	podcast where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines. I'm Natasha
0:17.8	Masqueriness and joining me is Tech Crunch startups VC IPO and
0:22.1	everything reporter, Alex,
0:24.4	Alex, thank you so much for running this Twitter spaces with me.
0:27.2	I love Twitter spaces and I don't care what the topic is about I'd be here
0:30.4	but the fact that we're talking about this particular merger in these companies is
0:33.7	awesome because it's a fascinating moment in time and so I'm just hyped to be here.
0:38.4	Yes exactly. I mean we are obviously coming at you live we're going to be turning this whole chat into a
0:44.0	podcast and expect it to be on the web this weekend. But the news item we're talking about today
0:49.6	is Head Space and Ginger are merging to form Head Space Health.
0:53.4	That new organization could be a combined value of 3 billion.
0:57.3	We're going to talk about an 800 person company.
0:59.7	And it's a big moment, I would say,
1:01.4	for mental health, digital health, and anyone really who has been paying attention to these meditation apps over the past few years.
1:08.0	We're seeing them take a pretty big step into being a more clinically validated company.
1:13.7	So that was the news morning.
1:14.9	I feel like I have recruited some of our favorite people
1:17.3	to give us their hot takes,
1:18.9	but Alex, I wanted to first turn to you
1:20.7	to give everyone else a little context on head space because I know you've
1:23.8	covered their rise over the past few years.
	...

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