News: mental health company Calm is acquiring a health technology company Ripple Health Group to replace Calm’s existing employer offering (Calm for Business) and rebrand it as Calm Health.
- Calm Health will provide digital tools that support mental health across the healthcare spectrum, and the Ripple Health team will help develop this suite of solutions.
- For context, Calm’s app has over 100 million downloads and is one of only two mental health apps (the other is Head space) that account for 90% of active users of mental health applications.
More on the health of Ripple: Ripple builds apps for care coordination and healthcare management. It came out of stealth mode in January 2022 when it launched its first two apps: CareMemo and LikePaper.
- CareMemo enables patients and caregivers to communicate with providers and health plans to ensure that important health information is delivered immediately and is centrally available.
- I likePaper allows users to set medication reminders and store, organize and share medical information with family and caregivers.
What changes will drive mergers and acquisitions? In addition to transforming Calm’s employer-oriented business, Ripple Health will help Calm move beyond sleep, meditation, and relaxation tools and into the broader space of mental health.
- Ripple will help Calm connect with other areas of healthcare that are connected to consumer mental health issues: For example, it would have a heightened use case for older adults dealing with both mental health and illness. Chronicles.
What does it mean for Calm’s existing employment contracts? While more comprehensive digital mental health tools could help gain new employer clients and retain existing ones, Calm also risks losing contracts if it decides to raise the price of its offerings. Most employers are worried about keeping up with the rising costs of providing health benefits to your employees.
The largest photo: Mergers and acquisitions in the mental health space are moving slowly, as we predicted. And more digital health companies are using mergers and acquisitions and partnerships to offer more specialized mental health offerings.
