Grow Therapy, a hybrid mental health provider, wins $150 million to build physician-employer relationships.
The Series D round was led by TCV and Goldman Sachs Alternatives Growth Equity, with participation from new investors BCI and Menlo Ventures.
Physicians and employers are a new customer type for Grow, but they have been the focus of the platform’s growth over the past five years. The funding will also be used to enhance the technology behind Grow and improve the user experience for patients, therapists, and other partners.
Grow currently has a wide range of partners including 125 payers, provider groups such as Circle Medical, health systems such as Kaiser Permanente, and employers. Primary care physicians provide 60% of the country’s mental health care, which is why Grow is currently focusing on them.
“One of the original reasons we started the company was[our own]experience of struggling to access the mental health system, including in primary care settings,” Manoj Kanagaraj, MD, co-founder and chief strategy officer at Grow, told Fierce Healthcare. “And yet, right now, many doctors who have patients with mental illness don’t really know how to send them to someone who has space, who accepts insurance, is affordable, and who will return information about what happened during treatment.”
Co-founders of Grow Therapy (from left to right): Manoj Kanagaraj, Chief Strategy Officer; Jake Cooper, CEO. Alan Nee, Chief Technology Officer
(growth therapy)
Grow can intervene by facilitating rapid referrals to available healthcare providers, closing the loop with patients’ core care teams, and sharing mental health treatment progress.
Meanwhile, employers are increasingly recognizing the importance of a mentally healthy workforce while battling rising costs. Grow partners with employers on employee assistance programs (EAPs) and can also provide continuum of care beyond the EAP. The goal is to make the transition between an EAP program and enhanced benefits as seamless as possible for employees, allowing them to continue seeing the same therapist within the network even after their EAP sessions are exhausted. Kanagaraj said given Grow’s wide range of payment partners, the company can work with employers to ensure continuity of benefits.
In addition to commercial payers, the company works with 25 Medicaid plans and accepts Medicare, with 3% of its patients on Medicare. Kanagaraj said so far it’s not very clear what the Medicaid market will look like after the One Big Beautiful Bill Act’s deep cuts, but Grow wants to continue expanding Medicaid coverage no matter what the situation is.
“I am concerned that the policy change will result in more patients being excluded from treatment, but I hope that is not the case,” Kanagaraj said.
Today, Grow’s biggest partners are payers. Their needs are evolving and more payers are focusing on quality and cost. Grow has 10 at-risk payer contracts to date, with more on the way. Kanagaraj said this is less than 10% of all payer contracts, but value-based care is “a growing part.”
“TCV loves backing great entrepreneurs targeting tremendous market opportunities,” Jay Hogue, founding general partner of TCV, said in the announcement. “We are excited to continue partnering with Grow on our journey to providing access to and improvements to quality mental health care.”
More than 2 million people have used Grow in the past five years, including for treatment and medication management. According to the company, 9 out of 10 patients would highly recommend Grow to a friend, with an NPS score of 85 out of 100. Eight out of 10 patients saw visible improvement in symptoms within 30 days.
Like other technology-driven companies, Grow never shied away from artificial intelligence, launching AI-powered patient journaling and ambient listening in 2025. Grow claims that AI-assisted notes have reduced documentation time for providers by nearly 70%. Kanagaraj is excited about potential future AI use cases to improve the user experience.
