Dive Brief:
- San Francisco-based mental health startup Lantern received a $17 million shot in the arm, thanks to a major funding round led by University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC).
- The Pennsylvania healthcare giant will work with Lantern to develop the firm’s online emotional wellness services and products, leveraging them within an array of clinical settings and conditions.
- The partnership underscores UPMC’s commitment to commercialize solutions in four areas: Clinical tools that transform care delivery, population health management, patient-centered healthcare, and increased business efficiencies.
Dive Insight:
Lantern was attracted to UPMC because of its focus on disease prevention, CEO and co-founder Alejandro Foung said in a statement. More so than in general medicine, behavioral health is reimbursed on a fee-for-service basis, encouraging greater use of services rather than prevention and wellness.
As part of the effort, the partners will pilot test the effectiveness of Lantern’s products on a range of mental health issues and in patient groups with more complex behavioral problems
The investment is the largest to date in the digital behavioral health wellness space. Joining UPMC in the funding round were previous investors Mayfield Fund, SoftTech Venture Capital and Stanford University.