Motivo raises $14M to help mental health graduates get licensed

The company allows recent graduates to do their clinical supervision remotely

Demand for mental health service rose during the pandemic, exacerbating the already widening shortage of mental health providers: roughly 122 million Americans, or 37% of the population, live in area where there's a mental health professional shortage. In fact, to fill these gaps, the US need over 6,000 more mental health providers. 

Part of the problem is that it takes so long to become a licensed mental health provider: even when someone graduates with a degree, they are still required to complete roughly two years of face-to-face consultation with a licensed therapist, in a process called clinical supervision, in order to be able to practice. 

Motivo is solving that problem with its platform that remotely connects these recent psychology graduates to a clinical supervisors, so that they can choose when and where they access that clinical supervision, and get it done quicker than if they were doing it in person.

On Thursday, it was reported that the company raised a $14 million round of funding ed by Cox Enterprises, along with SteelSky Ventures and Great Oaks Venture Capital. It has previously raised a $2.2 million round in late 2019.

There are three customer types for Motivo: first, recent graduates who are paying out of pocket for supervision; they utilize Motivo to find a supervisors and complete required hours through video conference. Second, mental health agencies or clinics who employ pre-licensed therapists. Third are graduate universities, who provide supervision to students during their practicum/internship.

To use Motivo, recent graduates can browse its directory of supervisors, which can be filtered by state, license type, and specialty area. They can schedule a free introductory call with a prospective supervisor to assess clinical fit before they commit and, once they've matched, they're able to share their screen and review documents together. 

The company offers individual sessions, as well as dyad supervision, which is two supervisers and one supervisor, and it also offers group supervision; the benefit of the latter two types of  supervision is that the supervisees can collaborate with their peers who are also going through training, but who might not live in their local area.

By allowing graduates to access supervision remotely, the company is expanding the type of supervisors they can access; there are nearly 1,000 vetted supervisors on the platform, 37% of whom are clinicians of color, 26% of whom have a doctorate degree, and 18% of whom are members of LGBTQ+ community. The platform is also HIPAA compliant platform, and also fully encrypted from end to end.

Over the last year, Motivo has seen 4x growth, and it has now helped 1,500 therapists reach licensure since its founding in 2018. The platform is now available in all 50 states.

VatorNews reached out to Motivo for more information about its fundraising and future plans. We will update this story if we learn more.