Unmind has announced that it has acquired Frankie Health and launched Unmind Talk. Details of the acquisition are unclear. However, the finance may have been provided by TriplePoint Capital, with recent filings in companies house indicating a Series B investment was recently completed. There is no mention of the investment on TriplePoint’s website yet.
Unmind provides a cultural change platform for mental health and well-being. Unmind Talk is an innovative platform that provides employees with mental health and well-being support. It is based on the Frankie Health platform, which provides a customised care journey for employees. It gives access to more than 1,000 accredited therapists across 300 specialities and 35 languages in 80 countries. Customers and partners include global brands such as Mcdonald’s, lendlease, Uber, Pernod Ricard, Major League Baseball, Nationwide, Standard Chartered, MediaCom and British Airways.
Unmind CEO and Co-founder Dr Nick Taylor said, “Today marks a significant milestone in the Unmind journey. Unmind will always advocate that prevention is better than cure, but in order to fulfil our vision and become the most trusted and effective global partner for transforming organisational and employee mental health, we must do more. From the very first days of Unmind, we knew we could drive change by combining the best of science with scalable, digital tools. Extending that further by integrating expert human services allows us to fully support our members through the flow of care, giving them frictionless access to quality practitioners from around the world.”
Frankie Health joins Unmind
The firm has grown quickly and was founded in 2020 by Seb Poole and James McGann after meeting while supporting a non-profit in Bali. It has raised $1.5 million in seed funding, led by E15VC, the latest round in 2021 (source Crunchbase). It is unclear whether E15VC has exited its investment completely.
Both founders and all staff, 22 according to LinkedIn, will join Unmind, giving the company staff in Ireland and Australia.
James McGann, co-founder and CEO at Frankie Health, commented, “We started Frankie Health to build the future of employee mental health,” James continued, “it was so exciting to meet Nick and see that Unmind has the same vision. It’s widely acknowledged that Unmind develops the best-in-class preventative support. Frankie Health has the highest quality global community of therapists and coaches. Combined we can achieve our shared vision of empowering progressive companies and their global workforces.”
Seb Poole, co-founder and President of Frankie Health, added, “The traditional Employee Assistance Programme (EAP) model is broken. Despite the growing need for mental health support in the workplace, traditional EAP call centres are often unable to meet the demands of employees. In fact, only 5% of employees phone their EAP’s call centre, and 42% of callers are rejected for therapy due to limited sessions and low-quality therapy services. We can make so much more of an impact by providing a modern, progressive solution with easy access to expert practitioners.”
Within a larger company, it gives Frankie Health the potential to grow even further and faster. Customers welcomed the news with Jonathan Coyles, VP Major League Baseball, commenting, “This is significant and exciting news from Unmind. The fact Unmind Talk uses scalable technology to unlock high-quality human support is a real game-changer. Unmind Talk can play a major part of the flow of care organisations offer – giving people the care they need, at the time and place they need it.”
Time to (Unmind) Talk
The news broke on “Time to Talk Day.”, February 2nd 2023. The initiative aims for one day a year when friends, families, communities, and workplaces should encourage people to come together to talk, listen and change lives. It is set aside specifically to discuss mental health, free of stigma or criticism.
Unmind Talk is a platform that can help organisations enable such conversations every day of the year. The platform enables employees to identify practitioners that understand the issues they face in the context of their race, gender or other diversity criteria. Employees receive several personalised sessions. They also gain access to Unmind’s platform of digital support content that can assist them with dealing with any mental health issues.
The Unmind platform provides anonymity and is founded on scientific knowledge backed by certified professionals worldwide. The benefits of providing mental health support to employees can help with several KPIs that HR teams measure. These include employee turnover, loyalty and absenteeism. It can also cement and improve the culture within an organisation.
Enterprise Times: What does this mean
Mental Health became a critical issue during COVID with the lockdowns. Organisations were forced to act under their duty of care to employees. With an increasing number of organisations adopting hybrid working methods, the issue has not and will not disappear. Regardless of whether the issues are individual, home or work-related, many now recognise that helping employees with their mental health can also improve the health and culture of an organisation and, ultimately, the bottom line.
As a recent HBR article (Access required) by Shantanu Nundy, Lisa A. Cooper, and Ellen Kelsay stated, “One of the starkest lessons from the Covid-19 pandemic has been the deep health inequities present in the United States and around the world…. Covid-19 wasn’t an anomaly. It was a magnifying glass.” This article raises the argument for health equity as part of an organisation’s DEI initiatives. It also reveals the potential benefits of addressing the issue.
As organisations such as Unmind mature and expand their offerings, forward-thinking companies are adopting solutions and platforms to help address health equity. This acquisition means that Unmind can now provide a more holistic solution to its clients. With the potential investment from TriplePoint, perhaps further acquisitions will come.
