Virtual clinical supervision company Motivo Health has raised a $14 million Series A round led by Cox Enterprises with SteelSky Ventures and Great Oaks Venture Capital participating.
The investment comes less than three years after the Atlanta-based company’s seed round and brings its total funding to $16.3 million. The previous raise was also led by Cox Enterprises with participation from Great Oaks VC, Techstars, SEI Ventures, ECMC, The Jump Fund, Emmett Partners and Next Wave Impact Fund.
The funding round represents how locally based capital sources are an advantage for Atlanta startups. Cox Enterprises is a strong corporate supporter of innovation. The local corporation recently bought media startup Axios and has a clean tech initiative that includes investments in Atlanta startups. SteelSky Ventures relocated to Atlanta earlier this year for its opportunities in women's healthcare tech. And the Techstars accelerator has an Atlanta program from which Motivo benefited.
Funds from the raise will be used to expand the company’s sales and engineering teams along with growing its customer base. It has a staff of 23 with eight based in Atlanta. It has less than 100 community mental health organization clients, including Georgia HOPE and CHRIS 180.
Founded in 2017 by CEO Rachel McCrickard, the company’s online platform assists recent graduates fulfill state licensure requirements to become a therapist, counselor, social worker or psychologist by connecting them to a clinical supervisor.
“Therapists are more needed than ever due to the mental health crisis, however, labor is in short supply,” said Maria Velissaris, founding partner of SteelSky Ventures, in a statement. “Motivo has become critical in providing a strong and capable pipeline of therapists by helping with licensing, upskilling and staffing.”
Increased demand from the pandemic
The market opportunity in the clinical supervision market is worth around $6 billion, said McCrickard, with approximately 300,000 clinicians going through the licensure process each year.
Demand for the company’s platform has soared since the pandemic. Prior to Covid-19, states had restrictions on virtual clinical supervision, such as spending at least half of the hours in-person. Numerous states have since changed their telehealth regulations to allow for 100% online supervision, said McCrickard.
Venture capital firms invested almost $6.9 billion into U.S. mental and behavioral health companies last year as the demand for behavioral health services and virtual sessions grew, according to data from research company PitchBook. That figure was nearly triple what the industry received in 2019.
As the pandemic has created an increased need for mental health professionals, Motivo is trying to break down barriers for the market to meet that demand. About 64% of those with a master’s degree in counseling don’t become licensed because of the time and expenses required, according to the company.
“It looks like the field is having an influx of aspiring clinicians who want to work in the mental health field,” said McCrickard. “After 9/11, there was an increase in people who wanted to be police officers because of a hero dynamic … We've seen the same thing around healthcare workers and mental health workers.”
History of Motivo
As a marriage and family therapist, McCrickard was inspired to launch Motivo from her own hurdles to become licensed. Living in Chattanooga, Tennessee, she drove two hours to Atlanta each week to meet with her supervisors. When Georgia passed a law saying the process could be done virtually, her startup was born.
In 2018, she moved to Atlanta after being accepted into the Techstars Atlanta program and eventually moved her startup into the Atlanta Tech Village. She was a finalist in the 2019 Early Stage Entrepreneur awards in the Atlanta Business Chronicle's Small Business Person of the Year Awards.
Since its seed round, the company has made an array of executive hires: former Airbnb Inc. Engineering Manager Michael Chen is chief technology officer; former Airbnb Business Operations Manager Sarah Louragh is chief operations officer; and former Haven Therapy of Atlanta LLC CEO Dr. Carla Smith is chief clinical officer.
Cox Enterprises Assistant Vice President of Strategy and Corporate Development Tim Howe and former Humana Wellness Services Chief of Operations Chris Cavazos now serve on its board of directors.
