It’s hard to run a business and help customers at the same time. And with more people seeking mental health practitioners these days, therapists are feeling a similar struggle to balance patients and paperwork.
Victoria Li and Andrew Riesen started Heard Technologies in 2019 to reduce the burden from all of that back-end office work, like bookkeeping, taxes and payroll, so therapists can spend more time with patients.
“There still remains a lot of opportunity to build provider-first and provider-focused solutions,” CEO Riesen told TechCrunch. “Much of the innovation has been around care accessibility or at the intersection of payers or employers. We’re building a solution that gives providers a bit more time and space back, both physically and emotionally, given the work that they do.”
Solo practitioners pay $199 per month to be a part of Heard, while group practices pay $299 per month. Annual subscriptions are discounted. There is also a payroll add-on for $40 per month.
Seattle-based Heard began in 2019 like some of those other companies — for example, Frame, Alma and Headway — helping provide access to care. The company had about 100 therapists paying for the solution, said Riesen, who saw this play out firsthand through his therapist wife.
However, after seeing how difficult it was to even start a practice, the team spent 2020 looking at pain points and challenges, which included integrating telehealth as the global pandemic surged.
Riesen explained that at the time, many therapists shifted from being part of a large group to starting independent practices, which presented new challenges of forming a business entity, tracking income and expenses, billing, payroll and taxes — things they may not have done before.
“We help them really understand their practice as a small business,” Riesen said. “Among the companies providing medical billing, electronic health record systems and care accessibility solutions, we’re slotted into that accounting back office, supporting them with those core bookkeeping, payroll and tax needs.”
Heard raised $1.3 million in seed funding to launch its general ledger offering in 2021 and then raised another $10 million in Series A funding in 2022. In the past year, the company saw both its customer base and revenue grow by five times, Riesen said. Meanwhile, employee count grew from 20 to 35.
Today, the company announced $15 million in new funding, which Riesen is calling an extension of its Series A round. It was led by Headline with participation from GGV Capital and follow-on from investors, including Footwork, Founders’ Co-Op, Act One and Heron Rock. The new investment gives Heard $26.3 million in total funding to date.
With the new funding, Heard will tackle automation and scaling technologies as it also expands its offerings in the areas of practice formation, banking and retirement.
The company also recently rounded out its leadership team with the addition of chief operating officer KK Mulligan and head of support Brandon Wolf. Heard is also hiring for a vice president of engineering and head of tax operations, Riesen said.
“There’s a lot of opportunity in the accounting space to both improve and automate the annual tax filing experience and build on our core accounting features,” Riesen added. “Our ultimate goal is to be the financial back office for therapists in private practice. We’ve also seen a lot of requests from our clinicians around financial planning and retirement planning, so we’re spending time on delivering a more effective and seamless solution there.”
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