In just two years since its founding, Madison-based child mental health startup Bend Health Inc. has reached a number of impressive milestones. It employs more than 100 people, offers services in all 50 U.S. states and recently announced partnerships with two of the country's largest health insurers.
The startup also recently announced it has raised $32 million to fund its rapid growth. Among its investors is the venture capital fund backed by four major southeast Wisconsin employers: Advocate Health, Foxconn, Johnson Controls International and Northwestern Mutual.
Bend Health provides virtual mental health services for children, teens and their families using a measurement-based, collaborative care model. Its approach allows patients to access care much faster than is typical with traditional providers, and it administers its services in collaboration with the patient's primary care provider.
The company's co-founder, president and chief medical officer Monika Roots attributes the startup's rapid early traction to experience. She was previously an executive at Teladoc Health and Sanvello Health, two companies offering virtual mental health care for adults. Her husband and co-founder Kurt Roots, who serves as Bend Health's CEO, was formerly Teladoc's vice president of data science and a senior software engineer at Oracle Corp.
"Having done this before — twice — you figure out what the blueprint is to be able to have an extensive reach ... but also being able to know how to scale from a process perspective, from a care perspective and a quality perspective," Monika said.
Bend Health starts with a skills-based approach to mental health, teaching children how to manage issues like anxiety and stress. Every patient is assigned a coach that helps them with mental health coping skills and goals. They're also paired with a behavioral care manager who collaborates with other partners as needed, such as schools, pediatricians, psychiatrists and therapists, Monika said.
Peer-reviewed studies recently published in JMIR Formative Research and JMIR Pediatrics and Parenting found that Bend Health's services led to improvements in children and teens with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and also reduced anxiety and depression symptoms.
Patients can access Bend's services through their insurers, employers, health systems or directly via a self-pay model. Bend Health has agreements with insurers such as UnitedHealthcare and Magellan Health that cover 170 million patients. It also partners with providers including Sauk Prairie Healthcare outside of Madison and Allegro Pediatrics in the Seattle area.
“Our partnership with Bend on whole-person, whole-family mental health care has accelerated access to care from six to 18 months to a matter of days, solving an especially critical challenge for rural communities,” Sauk Prairie Healthcare family physician Ellen Wermuth said in a March statement.
Bend Health has "well over" 100 employees — including internal health providers — that work in a hybrid environment at hubs in Madison, Minneapolis and Dallas, Monika said. Its Wisconsin location is in the StartingBlock Madison office near the city's Capitol Square.
Since its founding in 2021, Bend Health has raised $32 million through a seed round and a recent Series A round. Its investors include the consumer-focused venture capital firm Maveron; Atlanta-based Steel Sky Ventures; and WVV Capital, a venture firm whose $100 million Wisconn Valley Venture fund is backed by Advocate Health, Foxconn, Johnson Controls and Northwestern Mutual.
Bend Health raised the largest financing round among Wisconsin startups that raised venture capital in the first quarter of 2023.
