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Partners Group hired Astorg's John Chun as an investment leader on the health and life team, based out of New York, Sarah has learned. 

Why it matters: Partners, with Swiss-based roots, is an active acquirer of health care businesses in the U.S. and Chun will add to the firm's strength at the deal quarterback level. 

Partners' current U.S. portfolio includes Alliance Animal Health, Axia Women's Health, Blue River PetCare (which is currently prepping a sale), Confluent Health, EyeCare Partners, FYi Doctors, Forefront Dermatology, PCI Pharma Services, and Wedgewood Pharmacy. 

Zoom in: Partners, confirming the move, says Chun will help with its pharma and IT services themes along with supporting existing portfolio companies.

Partners' senior-level health and life team in the U.S. already includes Sujit John, Piotr Biezychudek and Todd Miller.

Catch up fast: Chun joined Astorg about a year ago, from Cerberus Capital Management, as part of a bigger effort to ramp up the French-based firm's U.S. expansion with several new hires. 

A source familiar with the firm's plans says Astorg's U.S. growth plans remain undeterred. The company was targeting some 15 to 20 U.S.-based team members by year-end 2022, Sarah wrote previously. 

Astorg's New York office, which opened in September 2020, is co-led by Christopher Cozzone and Olivier Lieven, the latter of who is leading U.S. health care. 

Partner Judith Charpentier heads global health care, and earlier this year, Maddie Conway Yudkin joined the U.S. team as a senior associate focused on health care, from Advent.

🤔 The intrigue: In other movers and shakers, we recently became aware of Adam Dolder's departure from Great Point Partners, where he spent 16 years — most recently as managing director and head of private equity.

Since it's now been four months per LinkedIn, we're wondering if the veteran health care investor might be gearing up to launch his own shop, which is very in trend these days.

What we want to know: Who else is on the move this summer, changing gigs, enjoying garden leave, launching new firms or health care companies?! Write to us. 

1 big thing: Partners Group builds roster

Illustration of a set of office chairs gradually moving up

Atlanta's Motivo Health has garnered $14 million in Series A funding led by insider Cox Enterprises, the parties tell Sarah. 

Why it's the BFD: The behavioral health industry faces a tremendous specialist shortage and Motivo, using technology, is tackling one large overlooked barrier: the road to achieving mental health licensure. 

By the numbers: Motivo has witnessed 4x growth in the last 12 months, with the latest Cox-led financing pushing total funding to $16.3 million.

SteelSky Ventures and Great Oaks Venture Capital also participated in the round.

The startup, with 23 full-time employees, has helped 1,500 therapists reach licensure since its inception. 

Owing to time and cost constraints, a striking 64% of aspiring therapists that obtain a master’s degree in counseling never become licensed, according to Motivo.

What they're saying: "The last five to 10 years has been all about access, but now that supply is tapped out; We need more clinicians," founder Rachel McCrickard says. 

McCrickard launched Motivo in 2018, motivated by her own uphill battle to access licensure in rural north Georgia. "The closest clinical supervisor was two hours away. It was a long, arduous and expensive process."

Zoom in: After completing graduate school, the process to attain licensure, depending on the state, requires 100 to 250 hours of supervision — taking around two years for a typical charge of $90 per hour. 

That's unique. Other specialties, like speech and occupational therapy, oftentimes don't require individuals to pay for their clinical supervisor. 

How it works: Motivo's online marketplace matches aspiring mental health therapists with state-focused virtual supervisors, coordinating licensure requirements on both a B2B and B2C basis. 

Its platform is now available in all 50 states, with the pandemic having encouraged states to permit virtual supervision. About 60% of business comes from community behavioral health organizations and the remainder from individual clinicians. 

As Tim Howe of Cox Enterprises sees it, Motivo is "democratizing the opportunity to get licensure." On the B2B side, he adds "we've only begun to scratch the surface."

Without Motivo, aspiring clinicians wouldn't know where or how to find a supervisor, McCrickard adds. "You'd be calling around one-by-one. This automates the whole process."

Of note: Motivo has a strategic partnership with Elevance Health, formerly Anthem, to help increase the pool of qualified therapists throughout California. 

What's next: With therapists required to re-certify their license each year, McCrickard and Howe say there's an untapped opportunity on the continuing education side. 

Motivo plans to leverage its clinical supervisors to create content, peer consultation, and education around various topics, be it trauma-informed care or narrative therapy, for example, McCrickard says.

It also plans to expand beyond supervision by developing a product to help fill clinical staff shortages. 

Yes, and: The freshly backed company is adding new B2B contracts with behavioral health organizations, digital health companies, and health plans — plus intends to enter into partnerships with graduate universities.

New hires of sales leaders and software engineers will support its growth ambitions. 

Details: The clinician-led company promoted Carla Smith to chief clinical officer earlier this year.

Howe is a board member, joined by Chris Cavazos, a former leader at Humana's employee wellness and EAP unit. 

The company in 2020 hired Michael Chen and Sarah Louragh as CTO and COO, respectively, from Airbnb.

One fun thing: Motivo is Portuguese for "foundation" — reflecting the company's belief that supervision is the foundation for a therapist's career.

Disclosure: Cox Enterprises recently agreed to acquire Axios for $525 million. Read more. 

2. The BFD: Motivo gets $14M to tackle mental health's supply issue 

Illustration of a therapy couch with a pillow made of money.

Flossy, a Los Angeles dental care startup, raised $14.7m in Series A funding led by TTV Capital with participation from insiders Slow Ventures, 8VC and Clocktower Technology Ventures, plus SV Angel and the founders of Carbon Health, Flatiron Health, Modern Animal, FabFitFun, GOAT and Tradesy, bringing total funding to $17.8m. https://www.flossy.com 

Trial Library, a San Francisco-based oncology clinical trials startup, raised $5m in seed funding led by Lux Capital partner Deena Shakir with participation from Next Ventures managing partner Julian Eison and Unseen Capital. https://www.triallibrary.com

Urban Health, a wellness tracking app, raised $3.4m in seed funding led by 3one4 Capital with participation from Venture Highway, Founder Bank Capital and Disney’s Ajay Arora. https://urban.health

Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan Board agreed to acquire a majority stake in Sahyadri Hospitals Group, a private hospital chain in India, from the Everstone Group. The latter will retain a minority stake. 

WebMD is acquiring Jim.fr., a French-language medical news and information website aimed at health care professionals.  https://axios.link/3AsUkHc

Atlantic Street Capital-backed Aligned Orthopedic Partners acquired the Jordan-Young Institute, a Virginia Beach, Va.-based specialized orthopedic practice. https://www.alignedortho.com/

Thurston Group's ARC Health, of Beachwood, Ohio, acquired Southeast Psych, a mental health group based out of Charlotte and Nashville. https://southeastpsych.com/

VSC Ventures raised $14m in additional funding for its debut fund, bringing its total to $21m. https://axios.link/3SV6FeD 

EMulate Therapeutics, a Seattle startup developing radio-frequency-based tools to treat a range of illnesses, filed for an IPO. https://axios.link/3PpzNI1 

3. Deals o' the day

Resilience Lab named former WeWork head of global expansion Patrick Morselli COO, former Phoenix Community Alliance executive director John Hamby general manager and former Airbnb Luxe director of portfolio strategy Alyssa Lin head of growth.

Well Health named former TigerConnect VP of clinical solutions Julie Schubert VP of professional services.

Homeward named former Dyson senior marketing manager Ryan Carey senior marketing manager.

Big Health named executive chair Arun Gupta acting CEO as current CEO and co-founder Peter Hames transitions to the role of president.

Nava Benefits named former VTS COO Patrick Kehoe COO.

4. It's Personnel 

Situational awareness: Google employees are asking the tech giant to protect data for users seeking information about abortions, among other demands, per a petition signed by more than 650 workers and sent to CEO Sundar Pichai.

🎶 Sarah is getting her dance on tonight at a Leon Bridges concert at Forest Hills Stadium. 

🙏🏻 Thanks for reading Axios Pro Health Tech! Please ask your friends and colleagues to sign up.

August 18, 2022

1 big thing: Partners Group builds roster