Rose Health wants to close the gap in mental health care. And it’s returning to the fundraising arena to get it done — after briefly shutting down.
The D.C. mental health startup, which has been on a rapid growth track since its pandemic launch, is preparing to open a $5 million Series A round in the fourth quarter, about a year after the company’s seed raise, said Rose founder and CEO Kavi Misri.
The plan: fund its sales and marketing efforts, as well as its data analytics and artificial intelligence capabilities. That will support the development of the Rose Accelerated Care Solution, a new tool equipped with machine learning algorithms to help doctors more effectively monitor patients between visits — and detect anxiety and depression earlier.
Rose has already been putting its money to work, after raising a previous $2.6 million, most recently with the creation of its concierge team. That’s led by a licensed clinical social worker who triages patients through assessment, coaching, messaging and short-term therapy before identifying the appropriate therapist and scheduling an appointment.
With that, Misri said, “we are finally able to end the access to care pain point that has plagued the mental health industry.”
The company is now in final discussions to pilot its platform with five of the country’s largest health systems and accountable care organizations, or groups of health care providers that offer coordinated care, Misri said. After taking in about $48,000 in 2020 revenue, Rose is projecting about $1 million in 2021 revenue, depending on those deals. Misri was unable to disclose specifics about those potential partners at this time, but said one hospital is in Greater Washington and another large physician group has nine offices in the D.C.-metro area with about 60 doctors on board.
The business now serves more than 30 physician groups and is heavily targeting the ACO market as it looks to improve patient outcomes and cut costs, Misri said.
His team gets ready to reopen the door to investors after its “Power Down” week Sept. 3-12, during which Rose shut down in the name of mental health.
“I am very well aware of the physical and mental weight of working long hours and feeling burned out. At Rose, our goal is to create an amazing product that ultimately will improve the well-being of people everywhere. My goal is to do the same for our employees,” Misri wrote in a letter to staff ahead of that week: “The goal is to take this time to shut off and focus on yourself and your families. Just to be clear, there will be no team meetings, no Zooms, no requests for ‘extra’ work.
“Rose is at a critical inflection point in this quarter. it is important to rest and refresh so we continue to grow and progress as a leader in mental health technology,” the email continued.
During that companywide shutdown, Rose’s 30 employees received pay but were instructed not to work, Misri said. The company’s remote patient monitoring team, composed of contractors, handled all patient activity and customer service inquiries during that time.
Misri conceived the idea after hearing from multiple team members at a Sept. 1 meeting that they were “stretched really tight,” Misri said. “As a mental health company, we want to practice what we preach and even though we are losing a week of operations, we will gain benefit for recharged, refreshed Rose team members who will be ready to take on Q4 as we onboard these large practices as well as focus on raising a $5 million Series A.”
Rose, one of our 2021 Startups to Watch, launched at the end of 2019 before Covid-19 quickly catapulted the business to a much faster expansion than expected. And Misri, one of the WBJ’s 40 Under 40 honorees, has taken the company through the Halcyon incubator in Georgetown, Johns Hopkins University’s Social Innovation Lab and Johns Hopkins Medicine’s Hexcite medical software accelerator.
