🧠 Getting Better Together
The latest on the business of mental health and wellness
Welcome to On The Mind, a collection of stories, news, and analyses on the startups, investors, and thought leaders in mental health and wellness.
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Here’s what’s included in issue No. 14:
Developing meaningful connections through guided group therapy
Reviewing the efficacy and benefits of group vs. individual therapy
Experimenting with better email management
🎙️ Interview with Chris Wang, Co-Founder and CEO of Shimmer
Conversations with founders, investors, and thought leaders in mental health and wellness.
I met Chris Wang last September as we started in the MBA program together at Berkeley. We were both coming from consulting looking for our next move. We went on a walk to chat about our shared interest in mental health. She spoke a bit about her family, what inspired her to commit to something in the mental health space, and her ambitions to start a company.
I’m biased because she’s my friend, but it’s been cool and inspiring to see how quickly Chris has evolved an idea into one boss-move after another. Fast forward a year, and she’s founded Shimmer (a startup offering guided mental health groups), dropped out of the MBA program, went through the latest cohort of Y Combinator, and is now raising Seed funding.
This week I caught up with Chris on the progress she and her team have made. Before diving in, check out this intro video for an overview of the company:
Why did you ultimately decide to build Shimmer, and who makes up your team?
Before I started Shimmer, I spent a long time trying to figure out where in social impact I wanted to work. I led social impact at Bain in Toronto, and eventually quit to work at Value for Good, a social impact consulting firm in Berlin. The initial mental model I used was more like effective altruism - where could my time go the furthest? That led me to things like developing countries, poverty, and agriculture.
Over time, through helping a really close loved one going through their own mental health challenges and constantly having that on my mind, I realized I could make the most difference by targeting my efforts on what I knew personally. That’s when I began focusing on mental health, since I had outsized knowledge, experience, intuition, and a personal investment in the space.
The founding team was myself and Jon Wang, who at the time was a medical school student at UCSF before dropping from the program to work full-time on Shimmer. We complimented eachother well, with my background being in consumer, growth, and general business and Jon’s in healthcare and AI. As we gained momentum we eventually onboarded Vik Sreedhar as our CTO along with a variety of additional experts, such as Dr. Amin Azzam.
What does Shimmer do today, and what are your goals for the company?
When we developed the idea for Shimmer, we were looking for two things: 1) the biggest root cause of mental health challenges that weren’t being solved for, and 2) the structural challenges that existed within the broader system.
The root cause we landed on was that people are going through things alone and don’t really know where to begin - often they can feel like a burden on others, so they keep their problems to themselves.
On the structural side, we realized that the therapist market is extremely supply constrained with a high barrier to access as a result of things such as cost, wait times, and cultural competency.
Shimmer emerged to tackle these two components. The initial idea was around livestreaming psychologists to unlock access and destigmitize the mental health conversation. That evolved when we realized that another root issue wasn’t being tackled by one-way communication: the sense of belonging and community that’s crucial to successful treatment. Today, Shimmer has adapted to run support groups based on shared experiences, led by coaches. Our support group themes include things such as identity attributes (e.g., LGTBQ+), career paths (e.g., founders), and specific indications (e.g., addiction recovery).
We just launched our product this summer and there’s still a lot of work to do to build in mental health-specific functionality and improve the overall experience. We’re excited to continue evolving to provide more value - for example, we recently built in gratitude journaling and mood tracking, tools that members can use asychronously within their group and on their own.
How would you describe the Shimmer user base?
We really value inclusivity, and our target user conversations are more about psychographics and philosophy rather than any specific demographic. At the end of the day, Shimmer users are looking for community and want to improve their mental health.
Oftentimes this ends up being underrepresented populations because the current system isn’t as fit for them, however we also cater to other groups such as our founder-focused pathway. Because we run small groups that each have their own identity attributes, we can be really flexible with who we cater to, and how.
Who do you consider to be in your competitor set?
To be honest I don’t like the word “competitor” because we’re all trying to solve this mental health epidemic - I prefer to think of it as the other players who are also building in the space. I know many of these founders personally and we help each other out as we each grow our respective businesses.
Similar models that co-exist with Shimmer are companies like Pace, Coa, Circles, Tethr, and Sail.
What do you expect will change in mental health in the next 5-10 years?
Primarily it will be the democratization of mental healthcare - bringing mental health to the mainstream. As it becomes more widely discussed, stigma will reduce and options will increase. It’s similar to what we’ve seen for physical wellness with the likes of Barry’s Bootcamp, Soul Cycle, Equinox and other gyms, yoga - the list goes on.
People want to engage with their mental health in different ways, and I think the offerings will evolve to meet individuals where they’re at. That’s how we’ve been approaching our own partnerships at Shimmer. We’re heavy on collaborations - we’ve worked with communities like Asian Hustle Network and Asian Mental Health Project, a variety of therapists, and even other wellness professionals to expand the definition of mental health. For example, we’ve incorporated things like somatic dancing, fitness, finding purpose - we’re always looking to partner with organizations that want to double down on mental health and are open to new models. The democratization I’m talking about will happen faster if we create personalized solutions that meet more needs of different groups of people.
You raised a pre-seed round ahead of joining YC. Where are you at in the fundraising journey coming out on the other side?
We’re in the process of closing our our seed round - we’re raising $1.5M for the next phase of our growth and are super excited. We’re grateful for the investors we already have on board, including Y Combinator, XX / Wefunder, Honeystone Ventures, Pillar, Megan Hall (VP of CVS Health), and Gaingels.
Daniel Ha as part of the XX team and Michael Seibel of Y Combinator have both been tremendously helpful in challenging us, keeping us focused on the consumer, and using pattern recognition to suggest other avenues we haven’t thought of.
We look for investors who believe in us, support our mission and team, and that we generally get along with. We’re excited to have people that stand behind us and that we feel comfortable going to for advice and a fresh perspective as we grow.
🩺 Clinical Coverage
Discussion of clinical concepts, studies, or perspectives on mental health and wellbeing.
If everyone is dealing with unique, individual circumstances, you might expect 1-on-1 therapy to be more effective than group therapy. So is the benefit of group therapy strictly to better match the supply of therapists to the demand for therapy?
According to Gary Burlingame, a professor of psychology at Bringham Young, the results of more than 50 clinical trials that have compared patients who were randomly assigned to an individual or group treatment have actually demonstrated that the formats are equivalent in efficacy for many conditions.
The American Psychological Association points out some interesting findings on the group therapy format:
Groups provide a social network and can reduce stigma, isolation, and feelings of alienation
Hearing from peers within the group itself can be more powerful than hearing from the therapist, since peers can identify with one another
As individual participants improve, the group as a whole tends to benefit - other group members realize they can cope and feel better too by seeing others improve who are in a similar situation
Research shows that a group that is co-led results in greater benefits; important non-verbal cues can be picked up in a group setting with multiple leaders that an individual therapist might miss
💰 Recent Investments, Acquisitions, and IPOs
Rundown of recent investment news in mental health and wellness companies.
Affect Therapeutics, a company looking to treat stimulant use disorder, raised a $6M Seed round (Link)
Alan, a French insurer, acquired mindfulness company Jour for $20M (Link)
Alma, a mental healthcare company that helps patients find and book qualified providers, raised a $50M Series C led by Insight Partners (Link)
Altoida, a precision neurology company, announced $500K in new financing from the Alzheimer’s Drug Discovery Foundation’s Diagnostics Accelerator (Link)
Beckley Psytech, a biotech company focused on the development of psychedelic treatments, raised an $80M Series B (Link)
BetterUp, a behavioral coaching app, acquired two new data-focused software companies Motive and Impraise (Link)
Better Therapeutics, a digital therapeutics platform that provides cognitive behavioral therapy, secured a loan debt facility worth up to $50M from Hercules Capital (Link)
BrainQ, an at-home brain stimulation device that supports stroke patient rehabilitation, raised $40M (Link)
Circles, an online support group platform, raised an $8M Seed led by NFX and Flint Capital (Link)
DotCom Therapy, a pediatric teletherapy company, closed a $13M Series A led by New Capital Partners (Link)
Eight Sleep, the smart mattress maker and general sleep fitness company, raised a $86M Series C led by Valor Equity Partners at a $500M valuation (Link)
Eleos Health, a company using AI-backed voice technology to gather insights into behavioral health, raised $6M in Seed funding led by aMoon Fund (Link)
Elixiron Immunotherapeutics, a biotech developing an asset targeting Alzheimer’s disease, closed a $27M Series A led by Pangu Capital and Taiwania Capital (Link)
Ellipsis Health, a company using voice to quantify and manage depression, raised a $26M Series A led by SJF Ventures (Link)
Flow Neuroscience, creator of a brain stimulation device and accompanying behavioral therapy app, closed a $9M Series A led by Khosla Ventures, SwissHealth Ventures, and Zühlke Ventures (Link)
Grouport, an online group therapy company, raised $1.5M in Seed funding led by XV Venture Capital (Link)
Grow Therapy, a startup that helps therapists launch private practices that accept insurance, raised a $15M Series A led by SignalFire (Link)
Headspace Health, the new entity that will be formed from the merger of Headspace and Ginger, will have a combined value north of $3B (Link)
HearMe, an app that pairs users anonymously with an empathetic listener, raised an undisclosed sum for its Seed round led by Plug and Play Insurtech (Link)
Humanoo, a European corporate wellness solution, raised a $10M Series B (Link)
Intellect, a Singapore-based startup making mental healthcare more accessible in Asia, raised a $2.2M Pre-Series A round led by Insignia Venture Partners (Link)
Iona Mind, a creator of digital mental health treatments, raised a $420K Seed (Link)
Journey Clinical, a company enabling psychotherapists to offer Ketamine-assisted therapy via prescribing physicians in their network, raised a $3M Seed round led by Fifty Years (Link)
K Health, a virtual primary care provider, acquired Trusst, a behavioral health app that connects users to on-demand, text-based therapy (Link)
Kintsugi, a voice biomarker-based mental health product that helps clinicians diagnose patients using only audio, raised $8M from Acrew Capital and the National Science Foundation (Link)
Komodo, a New Zealand-based student wellbeing platform, raised a $1.3M Seed round led by Folklore Ventures (Link)
LifeWorks, a provider of well-being solutions, has acquired Ascender, a psychological services provider for employee health and wellbeing (Link)
Meru Health, a digital mental health provider, raised a $38M Series B led by Industry Ventures (Link)
Minded, a consumer telehealth company making mental health medications more affordable, raised a $9M Seed round (Link)
MindFi, a corporate mental health platform, raised a $750K Pre-Seed round with participation from iGlobe Partners and M Venture Partners (Link)
Mindset, a mental wellness audio platform for recording artists, raised $8.7M in Seed funding led by Union Square Ventures (Link)
Mojo, a men’s sexual wellness company pushing psychosexual therapy over pills, raised a $4.4M Seed co-led by Kindred Capital and Octopus Ventures (Link)
Neuroglee Therapeutics, a company with a smartphone-based digital therapeutic targeting neurodegenerative disease, raised a $10M Series A round led by Openspace Ventures (Link)
NOCD, a provider of treatment for obsessive compulsive-disorder, raised a $33M Series B led by F-Prime Capital (Link)
Nova Benefits, an India-based employee wellness platform, raised a $10M Series A led by Susquehanna International Group (SIG) and Bessemer Venture Partners (Link)
Rewire Fitness, a neuro performance mobile platform aimed at helping athletes build mental resiliency, raised an undisclosed amount of Pre-Seed funding led by Under Armour (Link)
Rune Labs, a brain data startup, raised a $22.8M Series A led by Eclipse Ventures (Link)
Spring Health, a mental health platform for employers, raised a $190M Series C led by Kinnevik at a $2B valuation (Link)
TRIPP, a virtual reality startup working to boost mental wellness, has acquired PsyAssist, a company that provides research-based protocols for psychedelic therapy (Link)
Vigil Neuroscience, a biotech company developing therapeutics for neurodegenerative diseases, raised a $90M Series B led by Vida Ventures (Link)
📖 Interesting Reads
Sometimes mental health-related. Sometimes just things I find interesting.
Apple is developing technology to diagnose depression and cognitive decline. WSJ
When to be mindless. Scientific American
The amount of surveillance surrounding Britney Spears is pretty wild. NYTimes
Mental skills coaching. NYTimes
A look at Europe’s mental health company landscape. Sifted
Beyoncé through the decades. Harper’s BAZAAR
AI influencers are taking off in China. Insider
Reshaping how we understand metabolism. NYTimes
Starting to think I should pursue a YouTube career. NYTimes
The businessman behind Trader Joe’s. WSJ
How to remember anything, forever. Nicky Case
Thoughts on the funding landscape for behavioral health. Second Opinion
Interesting piece on rationality. New Yorker
The story behind the rise of the Ostrichpillow. Fast Company
Apple leads the transition to digital IDs. TechCrunch
China’s biggest movie star gets erased from the internet. WSJ
Magic mushrooms 🍄 take center stage. Newsweek
🧠 Mindfulness Tip of the Week
Tips to improve your mental health and wellbeing.
I probably spend several hours each day reading through and responding to emails, and I imagine many people are in a similar position. I think I’ve still got room for improvement, but I wanted to share how I personally ease the burden that email puts on my brain daily.
I’ve been a huge fan of “inbox zero” since the days of Mailbox (acquired by Dropbox and now defunct). The concept is that your end goal is to always have nothing you need to actively respond to in your inbox. I now use the Spark app, which is free, and it’s great. You can connect multiple mail accounts from any provider (e.g., Gmail, Outlook, etc.), which all feed into one inbox. From there, you can archive, pin, snooze, or sort emails into different folders. I’m not perfect with this system and often don’t get down to inbox zero, but this method keeps my inbox way lighter and ensures I don’t miss anything important.
With Inbox Zero, you too can avoid this. I was recently introduced to another tool, Mailbrew, which has really made a difference for me as someone who subscribes to a ton of newsletters. Another free app, Mailbrew consolidates all of your newsletter subscriptions into a single daily digest. You can also integrate other features, such as your daily calendar and top tweets from the people you follow on Twitter.
I’ve never used it, but a lot of people swear by Superhuman for what is self-described as “the fastest email experience ever made.” I’m not sure what it actually does, but curious to hear if it’s worth the hype (and by hype I mean $30/month) - let me know if you use it.
I’ve also never used Vimcal, which technically is more of a calendar tool than email, but I am aware of at least one feature that plays a role in email and definitely sounds like a time saver. With Vimcal, you basically select slots on your calendar that are open for someone to book, and it automatically translates those times into a structured email to make for easy scheduling. I use Calendly for something similar, but Vimcal feels quicker and is also less annoying than telling someone to find time on your calendar like an asshole. That said, this is another paid one, so let me know if you use it and find it worth the price.
The beauty of the single Vimcal feature I’m aware of, in action.
With Spark and Mailbrew alone, I definitely save several hours every week. If there are other tools or tactics you use to make email easier, faster, or generally more enjoyable, hit reply and let me know.
On Your Mind
Email me at tarockoff@berkeley.edu with any reactions to the newsletter.
If you’re working on something in mental health and wellness, let’s talk. You can book some time with me here.
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Written by Daniel Tarockoff, an MBA student at UC Berkeley and former healthcare strategy consultant exploring the future of mental health. Born in Michigan. Based in Berkeley, CA.