In 2016, Ryan Mundy was sitting in a room full of venture capitalists presenting startup pitches when an idea struck him: None of the ideas he had heard were geared toward solving the biggest problems in his own life.
Mundy, a 2009 Super Bowl champion with the Pittsburgh Steelers, struggled to find purpose after leaving the NFL in 2015. He suffered from anxiety as multiple family members were sequentially diagnosed with type 2 diabetes, Alzheimer’s disease and cardiovascular disease.
Mental health was on his mind, and he was pretty sure that was true of other young African Americans as well. “I found it very worrying to know how to take care of my shoulder and knee, but when it came to emotional support and mental health, I was having a really hard time,” Mundy tells CNBC Make It.
The 37-year-old says mental health in America’s black communities can be a struggle: Awareness is often low, and access to care is even lower. In 2019, only 9.8% of African Americans reported receiving mental health treatment, compared to 19.8% of non-Hispanic white Americans. according to the US Department of Health and Human Services..
Eventually, Mundy decided to do something about it. In October 2020, he launched Chicago-based startup Alkeme Health, a mental health platform designed specifically to meet the needs of Black communities. Alkeme, pronounced “Alchemy,” has already amassed roughly 30,000 users, about 300 contributing experts, and $5 million in funding, he says.
That’s a good start, but Mundy says his company’s struggle is just beginning: “30,000 users” pales in comparison to the country. approximately 11 million black millennials Alkeme wants to arrive.
‘Stigma is a barrier for everyone’
As a freshman at the University of Michigan, Mundy says she watched other aspiring student-athletes struggle to acclimatize, eventually going home before the academic calendar began. In 2008, during his rookie season with the Steelers, Mundy says the standard locker room response to mental health treatment was, “What is that? How do you do that? Take that away from me.”
During his eight seasons in the NFL, Mundy played for the Pittsburgh Steelers, New York Giants, and Chicago Bears.
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Today, many professional sports teams have in-house sports psychologists, and high-profile athletes like Michael Phelps and Simone Biles have spoken out about the stigma surrounding mental health. But when Covid hit, Mundy says, the teletherapy industry gravitated heavily toward women, seniors and members of the LGBTQ community.
Black Americans, he says, were mostly left out.
Mundy saw an opportunity. Since leaving the NFL, he had built a strong business network: He earned an MBA from the University of Miami, launched and sold a reusable straw company and became the CEO of an asset management company. Those connections helped him fund Alkeme relatively quickly, he says.
The biggest challenge, he says, was figuring out how to build a platform for a community that wasn’t the most aware of, or accepting of, mental health care. Leading with “go try therapy” may not always be well received.
Instead, Alkeme’s website and app offer three types of health education content: live expert panels, meditative audio clips, and skill-building masterclasses. Masterclasses include lectures on combating issues that are often specific to Black Americans, such as microaggressions, racism, and generational trauma.
“It was something I pontificated about quite a bit, because when we talk about mental health, the automatic response is to go see a therapist,” says Mundy. “I wanted to take a different approach, because stigma is a barrier for everyone.”
An Uphill Battle for Black Welfare
Mundy wants Alkeme to reach 60,000 users by the end of 2022. The company is on track to reach that goal, says an Alkeme spokesperson. At the company’s current subscription rate of about $70 per year, that would give it $4.2 million in annual revenue this year, according to an estimate from CNBC Make It. (The company declined to confirm that estimate.)
It’s a very modest share in a booming market: The global mental health app industry was valued at $4.2 billion last year, according to a research report from Grand View. published in February. Well-known apps like Headspace, which “reaches more than 100 million people,” a company spokesperson tells CNBC Make It, and BetterHelp are leading the way.
For Mundy, those apps aren’t doing much to appeal to African-Americans, giving him a chance to make Alkeme a “universal.” [mental] healthcare provider for the black community.” He, of course, notes that anyone could theoretically benefit from the kinds of resources on Alkeme’s platform.
“What’s good for black people is good for all people,” he says.
Still, there’s no denying the challenge of carving a niche in a well-established market. Mundy says it can be exhausting for the company’s seven full-time employees, and it would backfire if his mental health company didn’t follow his own advice.
“I always remind my team… we need great work habits, but also great rest and recovery habits,” says Mundy. “Whether it’s listening to an alpha wave in my Peloton or taking a walk to clear my head, I always try to find a way to relax so that when I’m really working, I can do my best.”
Correction: This story has been updated to reflect that Alkeme Health has 30,000 users and aims to double that number by the end of 2022. It has also been updated to reflect a CNBC Make It estimate of Alkeme Health’s projected revenue for 2022 at $4.2 million .
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