Headway

Lyra Health

Headway

Headway makes money by taking a percentage of the insurance reimbursement for each session facilitated through the platform. When a patient sees a Headway-credentialed therapist and pays their copay, Headway processes the insurance claim and takes a service fee from the reimbursement before paying the therapist.

The model aligns incentives well. Headway only makes money when therapy sessions actually happen, which means they're incentivized to help therapists see more patients and reduce no-shows.

Therapists make more than they would on their own (because Headway's negotiated rates are often better than individual therapists can get), and patients pay only their insurance copay ($0-$50 typically) instead of full out-of-pocket rates.

Scale creates a data and negotiation advantage. With 40,000+ therapists on the platform, Headway can negotiate better reimbursement rates with insurers.

More therapists attract more patients. More patients justify better rates.

The flywheel spins.

Lyra Health

B2B — Lyra sells to employers as a mental health benefit. Companies pay Lyra a per-employee-per-month fee to provide their workforce with mental health care.

Employees get access to Lyra's curated therapist network, self-guided digital programs, and coaching. Lyra vets and credentials every provider in its network, requiring evidence-based practices like CBT and DBT rather than whatever approach a therapist happens to prefer.

The company tracks clinical outcomes using standardized measures and reports aggregate data back to employers showing ROI — reduced absenteeism, lower disability claims, improved retention. This is not wellness fluff.

It's clinical care with business metrics attached.

Headway

Andrew Adams and Jake Sussman founded Headway in 2019 after watching people in their lives struggle to access affordable mental healthcare. The problem was specific and structural: most therapists operate as solo practitioners who don't accept insurance.

Not because they don't want to — because the process of getting credentialed with insurance companies, submitting claims, and chasing reimbursements is so bureaucratically painful that most therapists give up and go cash-only.

The result is a two-tier mental healthcare system. People with money pay $150-$300 per session out of pocket.

People without money either can't afford therapy or wait months for the few in-network providers available. Meanwhile, therapists who only accept cash are leaving money on the table — insurance pays reliably once the system works, and the patient pool is vastly larger.

Headway's solution was to build the infrastructure layer that makes insurance billing painless for therapists. They handle credentialing (getting the therapist accepted into insurance networks), claims submission, payment processing, and compliance — all the administrative work that therapists hate.

The therapist shows up, does therapy, and Headway handles everything else.

Lyra Health

David Ebersman was CFO of Genentech during its biotech golden era, then CFO of Facebook through its IPO and early public years. After leaving Facebook in 2014, he didn't retire.

He looked at mental health care and saw a system that made no sense. Employee Assistance Programs — the standard benefit employers offered — had utilization rates around 5% because they were terrible.

Therapists were hard to find, quality was uneven, and nobody measured outcomes. Ebersman started Lyra Health in 2015 with a radically simple idea: build a mental health benefit that employees actually use by making care easy to access, clinically excellent, and outcomes-tracked.

He brought Silicon Valley's obsession with data and measurement to a field that had been operating on vibes and good intentions.

Headway

Headway grew by solving the supply-side problem first. If you can get enough therapists on the platform and credentialed with insurance, patients will come because affordable therapy is in massive demand.

They recruited therapists with a compelling pitch: "keep doing therapy, we'll handle the business side."

Insurance partnerships were the growth unlock. Headway partnered with major insurance companies (Aetna, Cigna, United Healthcare, Anthem) to become an authorized credentialing partner.

This meant Headway could get therapists in-network faster and with less friction than the traditional process.

The mental health destigmatization wave amplified demand. Post-COVID, demand for therapy skyrocketed.

The conversation around mental health became mainstream. Headway was positioned perfectly to absorb that demand by connecting patients with affordable, insurance-covered therapists.

Lyra Health

Enterprise sales to large employers — Fortune 500 companies, tech companies, and healthcare systems. Lyra's pitch is built on data: publish outcomes showing clinical improvement rates above 80%, share case studies showing ROI, and let HR leaders calculate the cost of not providing good mental health care.

Early wins with marquee tech companies (Facebook, Starbucks, eBay, Morgan Stanley, Zoom) created credibility that opened doors to every other industry. International expansion into Europe and Asia to serve global workforces.

Strategic partnerships with health plans to embed Lyra as the behavioral health carve-out. Acquisition strategy — bought Togetherall (online peer support community) to add lower-cost tier of care.

Headway

Therapist retention is a challenge. Solo practitioners are independent by nature, and some leave the platform once they've built a full patient roster through Headway.

The platform needs to continuously demonstrate value beyond initial credentialing to keep therapists from going direct.

Insurance reimbursement rates are notoriously low. Therapists who accept insurance often earn 30-50% less per session than cash-pay rates.

While Headway negotiates better rates than individual therapists typically get, the fundamental economics of insurance-based mental healthcare remain challenging.

Regulatory complexity varies by state. Each state has different licensing requirements, insurance regulations, and telehealth rules.

Expanding to all 50 states means navigating 50 different regulatory frameworks, each with their own credentialing requirements and compliance standards.

Lyra Health

Proving that clinical outcomes translate to business ROI is an ongoing challenge because employers want hard numbers and mental health improvement is inherently hard to quantify in dollar terms. Therapist recruitment and retention in a market where every mental health startup is competing for the same limited supply of licensed providers.

Enterprise sales cycles are 6 to 12 months and require navigating benefits consultants, HR leaders, and CFOs who all have different priorities. The stigma problem — even with great benefits, many employees still won't use mental health services, so utilization rates are everything.

And price sensitivity: employers want better care but they also want it cheaper than the last contract, and margins matter when you've raised nearly a billion dollars at a $4.6 billion valuation.

Headway

Headway Provider Platform — the core system where therapists manage their practice: scheduling, credentialing, claims submission, payment tracking, and patient communications. Headway Patient Matching — a directory and matching service that connects patients with in-network therapists based on insurance, location, specialty, and availability.

Insurance Credentialing Service — Headway handles the months-long process of getting therapists accepted into insurance networks, reducing what typically takes 6-12 months to weeks. Claims and Billing Engine — automated insurance claims submission and tracking that eliminates the paperwork therapists dread.

Practice Management Tools — scheduling, intake forms, session notes, and telehealth capabilities integrated into one platform.

Lyra Health

Lyra Care — access to a vetted network of therapists and coaches, all trained in evidence-based methods, available for video or in-person sessions. Digital self-care programs using CBT-based lessons for mild symptoms that don't need a therapist.

Blended care model combining digital tools with live therapy for moderate cases. Medication management through Lyra's psychiatric providers.

Workforce mental health analytics dashboard showing employers utilization rates, clinical improvement scores, and cost savings. Family care extending coverage to dependents and children.

Critical incident support for workplace crises.

Headway

Andreessen Horowitz led the Series C at a $2.3 billion valuation. Accel and Thrive Capital invested in earlier rounds.

GV (Google Ventures) and Spark Capital also participated. The company has raised approximately $226 million total.

Lyra Health

Investors include Greylock Partners, IVP, Adams Street Partners, Coatue Management, and Dragoneer Investment Group. Series F in 2022 valued the company at $4.6 billion.