Blackbird Health – a neuroscience-led and technology-backed youth mental health provider – announced it raised $17 million in series A funding. This funding round was led by Define Ventures and included participation from Frist Cressey Ventures and GreyMatter. Blackbird has raised nearly $23 million to date.
Blackbird Health is a mental health company for kids and young adults struggling with social, emotional, developmental, and school-related challenges. Utilizing an integrated, virtual, and in-person model that includes a groundbreaking approach to diagnosing and treating, it’s the only in-network mental health practice dedicated to achieving better outcomes more quickly by taking trial and error out of delivering high-quality mental healthcare.
The original clinic behind Blackbird was launched in 2014 by Amy Edgar, APRN, CRNP, FNP-C, now serving as its Chief Clinical Officer, and then relaunched in 2021 when co-founder Dr. Matt Keener, a board-certified child and adolescent psychiatrist, joined the company. And together, Edgar and Dr. Keener pioneered an Understand-first care model that leverages neuroscience-driven patient assessments led by a trained specialist and computational models applied to its 10-year foundational dataset to uncover and treat root causes of mental health issues. Considering the shortage of in-network specialists nationwide, a major key to Blackbird’s model is affordability, so Blackbird partners closely with insurance carriers and employers to ensure timely, in-network access and coverage.
Another unique aspect of Blackbird Health is that its patient population includes a wide range of kids to young adults – with 45% under the age of 10, 45 percent between 10 and 20 years old, and 10 percent 21 and older. And Blackbird’s care model considers how children’s brains develop over time and the impact that growth has on mental health, enabling targeted and lasting outcomes regardless of age. For example, Blackbird has a high patient retention rate, and approximately 85% of Blackbird patients with depression and/or anxiety experience clinically significant improvement in their symptoms. Plus, Blackbird’s Understand-first and integrated care approach across its patient population results in substantially lower use of medications and ED utilization while leveraging a broad range of treatments.
Blackbird’s proprietary computational models and machine-learning algorithms are based on over 50 million data points across 10 years of patient encounters and are used to identify patterns. And these patterns help clinicians determine “Blackbird Biotypes”, which are clusters of individuals with similar symptoms-linked brain features. So Blackbird clinicians can more precisely and accurately identify the underlying root cause of symptoms and propose integrated and personalized treatment plans.
Following his family’s personal experience with Blackbird, former Evolent Health Co-founder and COO Tom Peterson joined the company as CEO in 2023 to lead Blackbird through its next phase. And the company will use the investment to build more technology, expand its service offerings and to scale the clinical model nationwide. Blackbird currently operates three brick-and-mortar clinics across the Mid-Atlantic region and has over 40 providers that include board-certified child and adolescent psychiatrists, prescribing CRNPs, psychologists, therapists, speech pathologists and more.
KEY QUOTES:
“As a mental health practitioner who’s seen thousands of patients, I’ve witnessed the transformative power of compassionate care and tailored support in young people’s mental wellness journeys. Our care model stands out because we prioritize individualized approaches to mental healthcare that deeply understand the psychology, biology and physiology that make up each individual’s situation. Our multidisciplinary and data-driven approach not only empowers our patients and their families with important information that helps them understand their condition, but it also allows us to build trust and gets at the root causes – a characteristic that distinguishes us at a time when the need is great but the available resources are stretched thin. At Blackbird Health, it’s not just about addressing symptoms; it’s about nurturing resilience, honoring dignity, and guiding each person toward holistic mental well-being.”
— Amy Edgar, APRN, CRNP, FNP-C, now serving as its Chief Clinical Officer
“Blackbird Health epitomizes the future of mental healthcare – a future defined by innovation and a dedication to significant cost reductions and superior outcomes – and I see tremendous opportunity for its personalized, technology-driven solutions and steadfast focus on understanding the underlying drivers of mental health. Our investment in Blackbird stems from a longstanding belief that the most successful models in pediatric mental health must be fundamentally focused on high-quality care. Blackbird exemplifies this better than any other organization we have seen, and we are proud to be partnering with them as they catalyze meaningful change and foster accessible, compassionate mental health solutions for young people.”
– Chirag Shah, Partner at Define Ventures
“We are rapidly growing our services and technology capabilities throughout this year and plan to expand, using a community-centered approach that partners with pediatricians and other stakeholders in each region. We also are building our team and will be the talent destination for clinicians who want to work in a truly integrated, multidisciplinary model of care that can transform how kids are understood and treated through in-person and virtual services.”
— Tom Peterson
