Seattle-based elderly mental health startup Rippl is launching out of stealth with $32 million in seed funding.
The company announced the funding on Wednesday. Co-founder and CEO Kris Engskov said Rippl aims to have its services up and running in Seattle later this year, and the company plans to launch in two or three more markets next year.
"(Our investors) understand this is a long road, and this is a really complex health care challenge to solve," Engskov said. "We've begun to assemble a world-class team, pulling from health care but also consumer and quite a diverse group of people that have a lot of experience in complex operations."
Rippl provides a team of nurse practitioners and other clinicians to assist elderly patients with their mental health needs. Patients can connect with health care professionals through the phone or online. Engskov said Rippl is starting with a focus on dementia but aims to be a broader mental health company, and the health care professionals on Rippl will be Rippl employees, not contractors. He added that he's been working on the company for about a year.
Engskov didn't say how many employees the company has, but he said the team is primarily based in the Seattle area. Rippl doesn't currently have office space but is looking to find a location in the area some time this fall, Engskov said.
ARCH Venture Partners and General Catalyst led the seed round, while GV, F-Prime Capital and Mass General Brigham Ventures participated. General Catalyst's portfolio includes Airbnb, Instacart and Stripe.
Engskov was previously president of Starbucks' U.S. operations and Aegis Living, the Bellevue-based senior assisted living and memory care company. Engskov said his time at Aegis revealed the need for a service like Rippl.
"When patients and families get a diagnosis, particularly of dementia but it could be any number of things like Parkinson's or any of these neurodegenerative diseases, they enter what we call a post-diagnostic black hole," Engskov said. "I was really shocked at the number of times older people end up in the ER because of these conditions. The ER is the last place they really ought to be, and the ERs are not designed to care for them."
