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Family First, a Boston-based employee benefit company that helps families with caregiving needs, raised an $11 million Series A.

Why it matters: Caregiving for loved ones who are ill is often a full-time job, costing U.S. families $522 billion in lost annual income.

Details: The round was led by RPM Ventures and Eos Venture Partners, with participation by Wormhole Capital and Stephen Fromm.

Funds will help grow Family First's sales and marketing team, as well as further product development, CEO Evan Falchuk tells Axios.

Falchuk says he doesn't foresee needing to raise additional funds.

"We have a lot of experience scaling expert services like this and you have to know how to do it without consuming a ton of capital," he says.

"I've never bought into the business model of raising money, burning it, and going back to market to get more," he adds.

How it works: Leveraging machine-learning capabilities, Family First partners with employers and insurers to help caregivers juggle work and caring for loved ones.

Users have access to an expert care team comprising nurses, social workers, mental health professionals and physicians.

"We collect an enormous amount of data on caregiving," Falchuk says.

The care teams analyze that clinical data, alongside social determinants of health, to identify gaps in care and to establish appropriate care plans.

What's next: Falchuk, former president of Best Doctors (acquired by Teladoc for $440 million in 2017), says he has "great ambitions" for Family First.

"Maybe we could go IPO one day once the market is open again, but the most important thing for me is for us to to define the caregiving market," Falchuck says, declining to provide further details on a potential public listing.

One sad thing: Falchuk started Family First after being caregiver to his father.

While medical care was a large portion of caregiving, Falchuk says, he had to consider a host of overwhelming factors.

"I realized that there was no insurance benefit for this situation and that it needed to exist," he says.

What they're saying: "The demographics are alarming: There are more people older than 65, than younger and they are going to need even more care as they older," says Jonathan Kalman, founding partner of Eos Venture Partners.

"Family First grabbed our attention, and there is a massive problem that needs a solution."

Kalman says that in the post-COVID era, employers are taking more steps to keep employees happy and to not only attract top talent but retain it.

"A lot of people need to quit their jobs in order to take on all the responsibilities that come with caregiving," he says.

The Center for Medicare and Medicate estimated that the national health expenditure in 2020 was $4.1 trillion, meaning that the estimated cost of informal caregiving is equal to just over a quarter of the total cost of healthcare in the U.S.

The bottom line: "There is the trend of moving care into the home. That is great in theory, but the trouble is that you are now making family members be medical practitioners," Falchuk says.

1 big thing: Family First embraces $11M Series A

Illustrated collage of a healthcare worker and a senior citizen. 

Insurance-accepting telemental health startup UpLift raised $10.7 million in Series A funding, CEO Kyle Talcott tells Erin exclusively.

Why it's the BFD: Demand for mental health services spiked during the pandemic, but about 45% of psychiatrists don't accept any form of insurance.

Deal details: New investor Ballast Point Ventures led the round, bringing total funding to $22 million.

Kapor Capital and Front Porch Ventures joined, alongside previous backer B Capital.

Funds will go toward expanding into additional states. UpLift is currently established in Washington, D.C., Florida, Maryland, New Jersey and Virginia.

Talcott declined to say when he foresees the company raising a Series B.

How it works: Tampa-based UpLift contracts with commercial and government insurers (Medicaid and Medicare) to offer its virtual-first psychotherapy and psychiatry services.

The company charges payers what Talcott calls a "blended" or uniform rate, regardless of the type of insurance they provide. UpLift's cut of that amount constitutes the company's revenue.

Talcott estimates that 90% of the services the company provides today are therapy, including individual and couples' services. The other 10% are psychiatry, including psychiatric intakes and medication management.

Meanwhile, UpLift tracks outcomes using standard clinical measurements and non-clinical information from common factors assessments, including questions about the experience of treatment.

"Do they feel like they're getting better, do they feel like it's working, are they on the right track?" Talcott says. "All of that is fed back into our ability to surface higher-performing providers to patients."

Flashback: After working as an executive at insurer Clover Health and primary care provider Cityblock Health, Talcott says, he saw how the behavioral health ecosystem's fragmentation was keeping patients from accessing care.

Many mental health providers, he noticed, are independent practitioners who lack the time to handle tedious insurance.

"They don't have a medical assistant and a front office staff and a nurse — it's just them," Talcott says. "If they're doing more administrative work, they're seeing less patients, which means less income for them."

State of play: UpLift's competitors include a sea of VC-backed telemental health providers — but few accept Medicare or Medicaid.

Headway this February was reportedly in talks to raise $100 million at a $1 billion valuation.

Alma last August pulled in $130 million at an $800 million valuation.

Brightside Health last March collected $50 million in Series B funding.

Plus, behavioral health enablement startups have attracted significant venture attention as demand continues to outpace supply.

Blueprint, a developer of patient tracking and outcomes assessment tools for mental health clinicians, this June collected $9 million in Series A funds.

PsychHub, a startup founded by former U.S. Rep. Patrick J. Kennedy that directs patients to in-network therapists, raised $16 million in Series A capital last August.

Heard, which offers therapists administrative services including those for bookkeeping, payroll and taxes, in June raised $15 million after closing a $10 million Series A last May.

2. The BFD: UpLift raises $11M for insured therapy

Illustration of a piggy bank-like brain with a dollar going inside

• Collectly, a Santa Monica, California-based provider of patient financial software, raised $29m in Series A funding led by Sapphire Ventures and joined by Y Combinator, Wayfinder Ventures, Burst Capital, Cabra VC and Davidovs VC. https://www.collectly.co/

• Thomas H. Lee Partners-backed Smile Doctors, a Dallas-based dental support organization focused on orthodontia, raised $550m in an unlabeled round. https://axios.link/3pWNkju

• Catalyst Clinical Research, a Wilmington, North Carolina-based clinical development organization, acquired Genpro Research, an Waltham, Massachusetts-based global clinical research organization. https://axios.link/46U7b3t

3. Deals o' the day

• Hugo Doetsch left a post as CFO at NetDocuments to join symplr as CFO.

• Carol Blackford left a post as a director at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to become EVP of payment and care delivery policy at AdvaMed.

• Harry Goldberg left a post as product manager at Komodo Health to join Abridge as senior product manager.

• Sunil Budhrani left a post as CEO at Innovation Health to join Capital Rx as chief medical and innovation officer.

• Shane Cunningham left a post as a senior VP at Franklin Templeton to join Axxes Capital as managing director.

• Jeffrey Perlman was promoted from head of Southeast Asia and Asia-Pacific real estate to president of Warbug Pincus.

• Srini Ananth, a managing director at Intel Capital, joined the board of directors of SiPhox Health.

4. It's Personnel

⚕️ Insurers deny medical care for the poor at high rates — NYT

➕ As health equity officers grow more common, experts say companies need to empower them — STAT

5. Your daily dose

Illustration of a repeating pill bottle pattern with one rolled up newspaper.

Happy almost Friday, Health Tech readers.

🧘🏼 Erin went to her first yoga class after a complicated hip surgery kept her off the mat for three years, and she ran 3.5 miles on the way to class to boot!

🙏 Thanks for reading, and extra thanks to newsletter editor Claire Rychlewski and copy editor Jay Bennett. Please ask your colleagues, friends and family to sign up.

July 20, 2023

1 big thing: Family First embraces $11M Series A