BetterMynd was already riding high after a year of growth and winning a $500,000 award in the 2021 43North competition.
Now some of the biggest names in Buffalo entrepreneurship are backing the company as well.
Campus Labs co-founders Michael Weisman and Eric Reich have joined the company as investors. Weisman, who now lives in San Diego, is working full-time for BetterMynd as vice president of sales. Reich is a board member.
That’s not all: Reich and Weisman helped recruit four other former Campus Labs employees to BetterMynd, including chief technology officer Buddy Rodgers, vice president of HR Lyndsey Banach, senior software engineer Jonathon Leight and senior user experience designer Mark Nosowicz.
BetterMynd, an online therapy tool for college students, now has 11 full-time employees with several imminent hires on the way.
The moves are a visible example of the theory that tech can be a self-perpetuating force in Buffalo – with successful entrepreneurs creating a tree of future companies.
“Eric and Michael have become invaluable to me since we won 43North and helped me procure some of the best people they know,” BetterMynd CEO Cody Semrau said. “Also they know a lot of people in higher education who we’re selling to and trying to develop long-term relationships with."
Weisman, a member of the Tech Coast Angels investment group, also recently invested in Verivend, a Buffalo-based payments startup.
Founded in 2001 by Weisman and Reich, Campus Labs became one of the first successful tech startups in Buffalo history. The company won the University at Buffalo’s first Panasci competition and was eventually sold for $38 million in 2012.The company has gone through a succession of private equity transactions since that time – the Campus Labs name was dropped last year in favor Anthology – but it maintains a 40,000-square-foot office in downtown Buffalo.
Semrau founded BetterMynd in 2017 based on his own experiences as a university student. He moved from Rochester to Buffalo in 2020 to become part of the city’s entrepreneurship scene, and became a 43North winner in 2021.
BetterMynd sits at the intersection of several important trends in higher education, with colleges often struggling to service the demand from students. The company not only offers a turnkey solution, but it also gives students access to a diverse network of counselors who are available on nights and weekends.
“Every school is experiencing a loss of counseling staff and a greater demand for counseling services,” Semrau said. “Our market is growing and schools are starting to invest into mental health resources.”
BetterMynd closed a $1 million seed round a few weeks ago, the first startup to confirm a growth-oriented funding event in Buffalo this year.
