US-based on-demand therapist platform Talkspace has closed a $15m series B round that featured telecommunications firm SoftBank, TechCrunch reported yesterday.
The round was led by Norwest Venture Partners, the venture capital firm sponsored by financial services firm Wells Fargo, and also included Spark Capital, Metamorphic Ventures and TheTime.
Talkspace has built an app that allows users to connect to a licensed therapist on-demand. The company claims to have 300,000 users, who can send unlimited messages for a weekly fee of $25.
The money will go towards international expansion and the launch of additional features such as group therapy. Jeff Crowe, managing partner at Norwest, will join Talkspace’s board of directors.
SoftBank and Spark Capital previously co-led the company’s $9.5m series A round in May 2015, investing together with Metamorphic Ventures and TheTime.
SoftBank’s corporate venturing arm SoftBank Capital, which has since wound down, and Spark Capital had already contributed to a $2.5m seed round in May 2014 that was topped up by Metamorphic in December the same year with a $1m investment.
Oren Frank, CEO of Talkspace, said: “We have grown to a point where we can leverage the data we collect about what works and what does not work in order to improve therapy itself. We can actually build predictive products that tell our therapists the best practices for this or that stage of therapy.”
