Pediatric mental health startup Handspring picked up $19 million in Series B funding this week. The company aims to help reshape how children’s mental health care is delivered — mainly by building a system where treatment intensity is matched to what the patient actually needs, not just what’s available.
Families struggle to get their children mental health care on two fronts, noted Handspring CEO Sahil Choudhry. The first is access — he pointed to long waitlists and the scarcity of providers who accept insurance. The second issue, quality, isn’t discussed as much.
“Even when a child gets into therapy, the care isn’t always consistently effective, because well-meaning clinicians often don’t get deep, ongoing training in the methods proven to work, like [cognitive behavioral therapy] and [dialectical behavior therapy], and the field has little standardization requiring any training and proof of proficiency,” Choudhry explained. “So families wait a long time and then don’t always get care that actually helps, and payers pay for care that isn’t working.”
Handspring seeks to address these problems by providing insurance-covered, evidence-based care. Choudhry said families typically find the platform through their pediatrician, school counselor or health plan.
The startup has a payer footprint in nine states: California, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Washington.
During a free consultation call, Handspring’s intake team confirms insurance coverage and learns about what the child is struggling with. Then they match the patient with the right therapist for their needs and they begin care, usually within a week, Choudhry noted.
Care is virtual, with sessions happening over video from home. It starts with the diagnostic process, which includes two dedicated evaluation sessions with parents and the child.
“Every diagnosis is reviewed and discussed with a clinical supervisor. Misdiagnosis is a real and underappreciated problem in mental health. The wrong diagnosis means the wrong treatment plan, and a child can spend months not getting better,” Choudhry added.
From there, the child works with their therapist, receiving care that is more “active and skills-based” than just talk therapy, he stated.
For a child with anxiety or OCD, that often means exposure work to help them gradually and safely face the situations they’ve been avoiding. Other children may need dialectical behavior therapy for managing intense emotions or cognitive behavioral therapy tools that they practice between sessions.
“The common thread is that children leave with concrete skills they can use on their own,” Choudhry declared.
The therapists are employed and trained by Handspring rather than being contractors, he added.
He said Handspring invests in their development by conducting ongoing training, supporting one-on-one clinical consultations and creating working clinical groups.
“This is to ensure consistent quality and outcomes, and it shows up in the numbers. After discharge, 93% of families report improvement in their family’s daily life,” Choudhry stated.
Another aspect that he thinks helps Handspring stand out from other pediatric mental health care providers is that it treats the full spectrum of acuity.
“Most behavioral health jumps straight from low acuity weekly one-hour therapy to the emergency room or an intensive outpatient program which often includes 12+ hours a week for 12+ weeks, and is group-based and expensive. There’s almost nothing in between for a child whose depression or anxiety escalates to something like self-harm but who doesn’t need inpatient or emergency care,” Choudhry explained.
He believes Handspring’s Complex Care program fills that “missing middle.”
Under the program, patients receive roughly 3-6 hours of outpatient care per week combining cognitive behavioral therapy, dialectical behavior therapy, parent coaching and medication management.
“We can match each child to the level of care they actually need instead of turning them away or handing them off. A lot of companies focus on one slice of that spectrum — we’re built to care for a child as their needs change,” Choudhry remarked.
The company’s Series B round was led by RPS Ventures, with participation from other funds including Angelini Ventures, Cobalt Ventures, NextView Ventures, nvp capital, Hyde Park Angels and Cornucopian Capital. Handspring has now raised a total of $37 million since its founding in 2022.
As it continues to grow, the startup plans to establish more partnerships with payers. Choudhry thinks Handspring’s model will be attractive to insurers because it aligns cost with clinical need.
“First, our whole model is built to give youth real skills so they can graduate from care rather than stay in therapy indefinitely. Care that ends when a child is better is good for families and for payers. Second, because we treat the full range of acuity, we match each child to the right level of care instead of defaulting to the most intensive, most expensive option – and Complex Care in particular keeps youth out of costly ER visits and IOPs they don’t actually need,” he declared.
Handspring also measures outcomes so payers can see the care is working, Choudhry added.
For the New York-based startup, the next step will be proving this approach can grow without losing the quality it’s built around.
Photo: Maskot, Getty Images
