Companies to Watch: New York Founders Expanding Access to Mental Health
We can scribble an endless list of ways COVID-19 upended daily life in New York, but there are at least two silver linings: it incentivized more mental health providers to spin up digital-first services and it broke down the stigmas attached to talking about mental health challenges. Those two outcomes aren’t disconnected, and a new wave of founders are seizing the moment to refocus healthcare on inclusion and access.
Virtual care models have seen an explosion in the last few years, and mental health startups continue to attract investor interest as a sector that will have long-term staying power. And earlier this year, Mayor Eric Adams brought the task to City Hall, announcing an ambitious public mental health agenda focused on family and children-based resources and support for those with the most urgent needs.
To mark Mental Health Awareness Month, we talked to a group of NYC founders on what wellbeing means beyond the pandemic — and what more it’ll take to truly make mental health resources accessible to all.
Meet this month’s Companies to Watch:
REAL
What does your company do?
Real founder and CEO Ariela Safira: Real is a mental wellness membership that offers a personalized everyday mental health journey, with on-demand therapist created tools, expert-led mental wellness events, and engaging community stories to support you wherever you are on your mental wellness journey.
A question we love to ask every founder: why New York?
AS: As a daughter of immigrants, I’m drawn to New York because the city is full of diversity, with people from different backgrounds, which pushes me to think intentionally, to think about a diversity of people and of stories that surpass my own.
I draw inspiration from my barber, who tells me about the traumas he faces after living through a coma and his psychedelic adventures that follow it; I draw inspiration from my neighbor who tells me about her daunting upbringing in Yemen as a Jewish girl; I draw inspiration from the diversity of food I have access to, from the diversity of languages I hear walking to work, from the diversity of people I meet every day. Everyone belongs in New York.
It’s also a place of contradiction in some very interesting ways. There are 8.4 million people living here, but at the same time 57% of people say they feel lonely some or most of the time in New York. There’s something staggering about that juxtaposition, and I feel passionate about making a difference in mental health care in this city, as well as the world.
Is the “traditional” therapy model — the strict 45-minute office visits — really working for most people anymore?
AS: No, it never worked for most people. As humans, we’re really bad at recognizing when our norm isn’t actually working, even when it’s obvious. When it comes to mental health care, this means that many people have come to associate mental health care with 1:1 therapy and 1:1 therapy only — therapy is one form of mental health care that over 90% of Americans cannot access. It’s also a form of mental health care that 98% of people of color cannot access. Therapy cannot reach “most” people — it never could.
What’s even more worrisome is that when we restrict ourselves to thinking that 1:1 therapy is the primary form of mental health care, and the demand for care increases as much as we’re witnessing now, two issues occur: Millions of people in need are left with no care at all, and therapists become so overworked that they are leaving the field. Currently, for every 10 mental health clinicians who join the field, 13 leave.
At Real, we make taking care of your mental wellbeing a priority and the care itself more effective. That’s our north star. We believe care needs to be accessible 24/7, wherever you are. This type of care needs to support you during your toughest moments — when you’re spiraling in your bed at 3:00am or overthinking a meeting at 2pm or hating yourself as you look in the mirror.
We also believe that care should meet you early in your mental health journey, before crisis. Those moments are remarkably intimate and vulnerable; more often than not, this is far before you’re ready to talk to someone about your needs. As a result, Real’s care model honors anonymity, privacy, and discreteness, for you to tackle some of your hardest and most vulnerable feelings in a format you feel safe in. We meet you where you’re at.
Care needs to be a part of your every day—it needs to be a practice that you engage with frequently, so that you practice behavior change, build resilience, prevent crisis, and have a safe space, always. Working on your mental health should look and feel as common as listening to music or exercising.
And most importantly, care needs to be accessible to everyone. We cannot continue living in a world where mental health care — where living a healthy life — is exclusive to those who can afford $1,000 per month for therapy and those who are white. We should be embarrassed by the status quo of mental health care today. Real is dedicated to building an affordable, effective and inclusive model of care.
You’re a first-time founder — and you were getting the company off the ground just ahead of COVID-19 hitting New York. How did that impact your roadmap?
AS: Ahead of the pandemic, Real was meant to be a brick and mortar mental health studio. We had a physical location set to open in NYC in April 2020. COVID-19 completely evolved our plans — though it became an opportunity for us to build a better model than ever before. When we learned of COVID-19, we immediately anticipated that mental health needs would sky rocket amidst the pandemic, and overnight, put up what was meant to be a one-month offering of free digital care called Real to the People, delivering both 1:1 therapy and group therapy for free, online. Amidst the program, we learned that people wanted access to group therapy while remaining anonymous — keeping their videos off, and their names hidden. They wanted this far more than 1:1 therapy — this was especially true for men and people of color. We listened, and this was the inspiration of Real today.
The studio never opened, and we built what I believe to be the most innovative, accessible, effective model of care to exist on the market.
During the pandemic, especially, employers found new urgency in beefing up their own mental health and other wellness benefits in an effort to better support (and retain) talent. Does that have staying power? What do Real’s resources look like for a workplace setting?
AS: The problem is only getting worse. Across the country, mental illness is skyrocketing — 76% of US workers reported at least one sign of mental illness last year alone. And history shows that post-pandemic rates of illness only grow. When we look at previous pandemics or large scale traumatic events, we see that mental health continues to decline and to impact the lives of individuals for years to come.
What’s more, the employees who make up our future workplace are the sickest. In less than a decade, Gen Z and Millennials will make up 60% of our global workforce. Nearly one-third of millennials have some type of behavioral health problem, exceeding their elders and relative to previous generations, Gen Z is about twice as likely to battle depression. 81% of Gen Z adults and 68% of Millennials report leaving their jobs for mental health-related reasons. We will not have any existing workforce if we don’t solve this issue — the right way — soon.
And finally, the professions who make up our future workforce are not only sick, but also remarkably more underserved when it comes to accessing care than any other. From truck drivers and manufacturing employees, to store associates and hospitality workers, deskless workers make up 80% of our global workforce and face high rates of mental illness, yet have remarkably poor access to care. 62% of restaurant employees experienced mistreatment by customers in 2021 alone; 39% of hourly workers reported that their work schedules negatively affected their health. And yet, 47% of hourly employees report that they cannot easily anticipate what days and times they will work week to week, making an hour of 1:1 therapy appointment every week inaccessible. The list of issues only grows.
Mental illness is already a substantial issue for employers — and it is going to become profoundly worse. Not only do we need solutions to treat mental illness at scale, but we also have to start preventing illness. That is how we’re building Real for the workplace.
Okay, some rapid-fire questions. First: where do you get your favorite pizza slice?
AS: Joe’s Pizza forever.
What’s the best place in New York for a coffee or lunch meeting?
AS: I love Devoción for a coffee — and to grab food and sit somewhere outside for a meeting.
What’s the one piece of advice you’ve recently given to a peer founder who may be spooked about ongoing market uncertainties?
AS: You only have one life. If you believe in a mission, if you want to build this new idea, do it. There will always be so much you can’t control — focus on what you can control and follow what you believe in.
What’s one personal mental health practice you swear by in your own personal or professional life?
AS: I love listening to other people’s stories — it makes me feel more connected, it makes me feel present and calm, and getting to know other people’s stories helps me name and understand my own. Whether or not someone has a similar story to me, I’m still able to understand my own world and why I act the way I do better when I get to know how other people go about theirs. I’ve definitely heard that I can be too quick to ask about intimate details of others’ lives, but I find the practice to be remarkably valuable.
LAGUNA HEALTH
What does your company do?
Laguna Health co-founder and CEO Yoni Shtein: Laguna Health is an AI-powered contextual care management platform. That means we use AI and clinical models to personalize recovery journeys for patients who are admitted to the hospital and are then discharged home to continue recovering on their own — and technology allows us to do that at scale.
Laguna leverages the medical and life-context a member shares to personalize recovery journeys by using natural language processing (NLP) to highlight barriers to recovery, and then apply our AI care engine to automatically update care plans. Care managers access all of this information through our integrative platform, while members communicate with us either through our member app, SMS, phone, or video call. Our contextual care approach, coupled with our platform and underlying AI have proven to advance recovery, lower readmissions, and drive operational efficiency.
A question we love to ask every founder: why New York?
YS: New York City draws a wealth of diverse and talented minds that want to transform the world, and we want to have the best and brightest in the healthcare industry to support our mission.
What’s the origin story of Laguna Health?
YS: In 2016, I lost my mother-in-law suddenly after she was discharged from the hospital. This was a rude awakening for me and my family on many fronts, and it prompted me to ruminate on the meaning of life and to do something with a profound purpose. During the early days of the pandemic my co-founder, Yael Peled Adam, and I began to think deeply about leveraging technology to provide services for patients and providers to utilize after surgery and hospitalization. Between my personal experience with my mother-in-law and Yael’s personal experience of undergoing multiple surgeries, we had a shared interest in post-hospital care transition.
AI is all the hype right now, and Laguna has its own AI engine to support care management. How is Laguna using AI to support outcomes that center mental wellbeing for its users?
YS: Hospitalization negatively impacts patients’ anxiety, stress levels, and overall mental health. This makes it difficult to follow a strict set of medical instructions, monitor physical progress, manage medical devices on their own, and navigate the emotional implications of a physical setback. In fact, there are predictable and well-known emotional barriers to recovery. For example, 50% of cardiac hospitalizations and 75% of stroke patients experience severe bouts of depression as a result of loss of physical functioning. As a result, more than one-third of all home-discharged patients escalate to higher-cost settings, such as being readmitted back to the hospital. It’s a vicious cycle for an emotionally and physically vulnerable population.
Additionally, when patients are discharged from the hospital to self-care at home, the patient’s recovery journey typically involves receiving a stack of paper instructions they find confusing, with very minimal clinical oversight. Even if a patient has a care manager assigned to them, their medical records don’t reflect the situational factors and emotional drivers that may roadblock their recovery journey.
Our care engine takes these unique signals into consideration to help circumvent potential pitfalls for the patient. We are intaking information about their surrounding life and circumstances, then applying AI to structure and address their needs so that they can have a safer recovery and better outcomes.
Congratulations on your recent $15 million Series A funding. What is the new capital going to mean for your growth plans?
YS: We’re using the funding to deepen our AI capabilities in the care management context. The funding will also help us expand our go-to-market with payers and integrated delivery networks.
What’s on Laguna’s roadmap for the next year?
YS: We are working on some very exciting partnerships with health systems and health insurance companies. We’re also developing updates to both our care manager platform and our app to improve coordination and communication between caregivers and providers.
Okay, some rapid-fire questions. First: where do you get your favorite pizza slice?
YS: Prince Street Pizza.
What’s the best place in New York for a coffee or lunch meeting?
YS: The Smith in NoMad.
What’s the one piece of advice you’d give a peer founder spooked about the 2023 market predictions we’re all reading about?
YS: Focus and be disciplined about finding a real pain point that you can make real innovation around. Find a solution that could drive value sustainably across cycles. Healthcare is one of the more non-cyclical industries out there. That is not the case with fad-driven healthcare investments; they will disappear when the cycle disappears.
What’s one personal mental health practice you swear by in your own personal or professional life?
YS: I take a moment every day to recognize what I am grateful for in life, which are my family and health.
HOPPER HEALTH
What does your company do?
Hopper Health founder and CEO Katya Siddall-Cipolla: Hopper is the first virtual primary care and navigation built specifically for neurodivergent adults. We help autistic, ADHD, OCD, Tourette's, and dyslexic people get tech-enabled healthcare care that meets their sensory, information-processing, and communication needs. We do this by connecting neurodivergent adults with neurodivergent care navigators and primary care teams trained in the communication and sensory needs of neurodivergent folks.
A question we love to ask every founder: why New York?
KSC: First, New York is the best! It has no equal in the US as a hub for the most creative minds in culture and business. Anecdotally, many neurodivergent people move to cities to live and receive their care, so we knew there was a great opportunity to have an immediate impact on the neurodivergent community while improving our service. Personally, I love the anonymity and sensory experience of big cities, with the homey feel of unique neighborhoods.
Why is it important to you that Hopper is “built by neurodivergent people for neurodivergent people”?
KSC: There are more than 30 million autistic, ADHD, OCD, Tourette’s, and dyslexic adults living in America today. While our diagnoses are different, my community often endures very similar chronic health issues and problems in healthcare settings. For example, as a population we spend twice as much on emergency room visits or other medical costs once diagnosed with a chronic condition, partly because our physical symptoms are often misattributed to mental health diagnoses. 34% of autistic adults have reported avoiding getting care for a serious or life-threatening condition because of previous negative experiences with healthcare — I’m definitely included in this group. Because we receive few to no accommodations, neurodivergent people often avoid visiting the doctor altogether, or end up more anxious and traumatized after a visit. This leads to more serious health problems in the future. Why is this huge population being ignored?
It’s important to keep in mind why individuals, like me, need specialized primary care. Neurodivergent people may have sensory, information processing, and communication differences that present in ways most primary care settings — where providers and staff are generally rushed and untrained on these differences — are ill-equipped to accommodate. That means neurodivergent people can be left behind.
But we are not a niche population; 1 in 5 Americans are neurodivergent. We deserve care that works better for us. That means providing an experience that takes into consideration the (often simple) accommodations that would make neurodivergent people more likely to see their primary care provider.
That’s why I launched Hopper Health: to provide neurodivergent-affirming primary care and healthcare navigation services to a chronically underserved patient population.
What are some of the unique issues neurodivergent people face in today’s healthcare system, and how does Hopper work to help these patients?
KSC: For neurodivergent people, visiting the doctor can be a sensory and executive-functioning nightmare. Dense paperwork can be frustrating, bright lights cause anxiety, and the doctor-patient dynamic can lead to camouflaging our neurodivergent traits. People with neurological differences are more likely to experience co-occurring mental health conditions like anxiety and depression, while our neurodevelopmental conditions are often misdiagnosed as mental illness. We are also more likely to experience other comorbidities, including GI issues, autoimmune disorders, and chronic pain.
The US healthcare system is not equipped to serve neurodivergent people. For example, 85% of medical students feel inadequately prepared to provide care for autistic patients. As a result, neurodivergent adults often experience diagnostic overshadowing, which occurs when a physician unconsciously attributes a patient's physical symptoms to a known condition, such as OCD or ADHD, to the exclusion of other potential causes. Less than 3% of physicians report having a disability, inclusive of neurodevelopmental disorders. The inability to find care providers who relate to our lived experiences and understand our unique healthcare needs leads many neurodivergent adults to avoid seeking care for potentially serious or life-threatening conditions.
To address these issues, Hopper Health provides culturally-competent and contextual primary care and healthcare navigation services to this chronically underserved patient population. Upon signup, members are connected with a neurodivergent peer navigator who understands the unique challenges of seeking healthcare through their own lived experience. Clinically-validated screeners gather in-depth family, social, and health history experiences as well as sensory and communication preferences that are shared with the clinician. Hopper's primary care clinicians are trained and educated in neurodivergent accommodations, and adapt to the patient's needs to provide the best patient care possible. Each visit includes an extended history review, longitudinal care plan development, and insurance navigation that removes friction and supports patient engagement.
What more can we do to ensure telehealth and virtual care services are more accessible to people with different needs and experiences? What’s one major change you hope to see in healthcare by 2030?
KSC: First, we need to make sure that people are aware there are services available to them that were built from the ground up to cater to their specific conditions and needs! This also means training all doctors to ask patients about potential accommodation needs. Accommodations are often easy to handle and make a huge difference for patients.
By 2030, I would like to see all medical schools make sure that their graduates understand neurodivergent accommodations and how to implement them into their everyday practice. The fact that most medical students don’t immediately know how to accommodate a neurodivergent patient means that it’s not being covered in school, and the challenges surrounding neurodivergent care will not improve until that’s addressed, or until we have many more neurodivergent practitioners.
Okay, some rapid-fire questions. First: where do you get your favorite pizza slice?
KSC: I live in Brooklyn, and Juliana’s is both walkable and delicious!
What’s the best place in New York for a coffee or lunch meeting?
KSC: I have really been liking a new coffee shop right by me in DUMBO, Beepublic. It’s very plant-y and cute, and the owners have a great mission. I also am a fan of picking up lunch at Time Out Market and grabbing seats on the pier at Brooklyn Bridge Park.
What’s the one piece of advice you’ve recently given to a peer founder who may be spooked about ongoing market uncertainties?
KSC: People always need healthcare, and great businesses have been founded in downturns. Starting in a tough macro environment can mean that you focus on the fundamentals from the beginning and aren’t having to frantically grow your way into an unrealistic valuation. I’m super bullish on great founders starting now.
What’s one personal mental health practice you swear by in your own personal or professional life?
KSC: I’m autistic, so I am really leaning into accommodating my sensory needs. I got a $60 hammock from Amazon and swing on my patio every morning to get vestibular sensory input. So many things we did as kids, like swinging, spinning, and jumping on trampolines are so great for sensory regulation as adults!
SOMETHINGS
What does your company do?
Somethings founder and CEO Patrick Gilligan: Somethings connects teens with trained and relatable mentors who help teens thrive. Mentors provide mental wellness support to teens whenever they need throughout the month via our mobile app.
A question we love to ask every founder: why New York?
PG: New York is an incredibly vibrant place to start a company. The fast paced life and creative energy attracts super talented people who want to build really cool things. It’s energizing to be around so many amazing people doing amazing things — that energy definitely feeds into the products being built.
What are some of the issues facing teens today — the pandemic surely brought some unique nuances to how you approach the user-mentor relationship, right?
PG: Teens are faced with more issues than ever before. Social isolation, concerns around social media, pressures to succeed in school, and so much more. Rates of nearly all issues that teens face are on the rise and tha pandemic exacerbated many of them. However, one thing that the pandemic accelerated positively was teens' openness to seeking support through digital means. Our product integrates into their life on their phone so they don’t have to go out of their way to get support — it’s right there whenever they need.
What is Somethings doing differently that more traditional mental healthcare isn’t? Why are teens more attracted to your solution over traditional counseling?
PG: Our mentors are relatable to teens and have actually gone through a similar experience to what they are actually facing. In addition, teens can talk to their mentor when they want throughout the week rather than having to wait, for example, until a session next Tuesday. We’re creating a new category with our mentors and in no way do we think we are replacing clinical resources. In fact, we are often an augment and addition to clinical resources for when teens feel like they need more consistent support throughout their life.
You’re a first-time founder, and Somethings recently launched with a $3.2 million seed round. What was the fundraising process like?
PG: Raising money in a downturn is never easy and we definitely had our fair share of passes. Ultimately, the passion that we have for our mission and the passion that our customers have for our product enabled us to find amazing partners to work with.
Okay, some rapid-fire questions. First: where do you get your favorite pizza slice?
PG: Pep’s on Grand.
What’s the best place in New York for a coffee or lunch meeting?
PG: Blue Bottle on Broadway and Canal — because it’s in a hotel and there are super cool couches.
What’s the one piece of advice you’ve recently given to a peer founder who may be spooked about ongoing market uncertainties?
PG: Build a great product with a straightforward revenue model and don’t sweat the rest.
What’s one personal mental health practice you swear by in your own personal or professional life?
PG: Although I try to maintain a healthy balance with it, exercising in the morning before working is one of the only things that allows me to fall asleep consistently at night and ensure that I’m ready to go again the next day.
ROBIN
What does your company do?
Robin co-founder and CEO Sonny Thadani: Robin is a mental health organization that provides Tier 1 and Tier 2 support to school communities across the country. Our platform provides measurable outcomes rooted in evidence for every member of the school, including students, educators, staff, and parents.
A question we love to ask every founder: why New York?
ST: NYC is my home, I’m raising my three kids and family here. It’s also the epicenter for educational innovation.
Why was it important for you to build Robin around school communities, versus a more traditional or general user base?
ST: We can’t have a significant impact without including all members of our school community. Sustainability comes from a repeatable process from all parties involved.
What resources are Robin’s coaches finding most in demand right now? Was there a shift you noticed through the pandemic?
ST: Supporting the frontline workers at schools — bus drivers, cafeteria workers, janitorial staff, and other support workers. The shift we saw was about a greater emphasis on making mental wellness a part of our everyday life.
What’s the next major milestone on Robin’s roadmap? Any growth goals you’re pursuing by the end of the year?
ST: We’re rolling out an enhanced platform for schools communities, including Mental Health First Aid training.
Okay, some rapid-fire questions. First: where do you get your favorite pizza slice?
ST: Joe’s Pizza on Carmine.
What’s the best place in New York for a coffee or lunch meeting?
ST: Hudson Clearwater.
What’s the one piece of advice you’ve recently given to a peer founder who may be spooked about ongoing market uncertainties?
ST: Focus on hiring the best and on customer outcomes — everything else will follow.
What’s one personal mental health practice you swear by in your own personal or professional life?
ST: Mantras — think of the right mantra for you and repeat it everyday. It works!
