Anise Health — Culturally-Responsive Mental Health Platform
The Problem
Mental illness affects 1 in 4 adults in America. Yet, existing solutions are built on a Eurocentric model of psychology that doesn’t address the needs of 133 million ethnic minorities in the US. This means clinicians often focus on treating the wrong issues, causing mis- and under-diagnosis, distrust, and poor engagement.
What The Company Does
Anise develops culturally-adapted care models that offer a holistic suite of digital services for each cultural group (i.e. therapy, coaching, self-service content, and support groups). The care model moves away from diagnosis-driven, Eurocentric models and towards incorporating culture and intersectionality into evidence-based treatments, which research shows to be 5x more effective.
Business Model
Anise’s current business model is a tiered monthly subscription plan, where clients are triaged to the appropriate care plan based on need and progress. On average clients pay ~$250/month for 4 sessions, which is only ¼ the cost of private practice rates in urban markets. While Anise is not yet in-network with insurance, the services are eligible for HSA/FSA benefits to reduce the direct financial burden. Anise therapists are contractors and reimbursed by Anise on a per-session basis at negotiated rates. As Anise sells to enterprise clients to scale, employers will adopt a pay per use model, where they pay a monthly fee to cover and/or subsidize access for active minority employees. This model enables Anise to co-exist with incumbent mental health benefits and serve as an “add-on” vs. a replacement. The B2B channel also represents a “passive” monetization opportunity via delivery of corporate webinars, training, and psychoeducation workshops with DEI initiatives and employee resource groups (ERGs).
Market
The US minority population is large and growing from 133 million to 184 million by 2040. Private pay for mental health care among minorities represents an $18 billion market, and the initial target — Asian Americans (ages 18–45) — alone represents a $4 billion opportunity with significant unmet need.
Traction
Anise launched a pilot program last year, and within 1 week of targeted recruitment, generated 7.5x and 6x oversubscribed client and therapist demand, respectively. Across ~80 sessions completed, clients saw 23–34% average improvement in symptom levels, 97% satisfaction, and 98% treatment adherence. The success from the pilot resulted in a waitlist of 230+ clients for the beta launch (11% MoM growth) and 120+ providers, of which 26 have been trained and onboarded. Since both co-founders transitioned to full-time in 2022, topline growth has been 36% MoM from multiple revenue streams, including partnerships with 10 Asian affinity and professional organizations. Anise recently secured its first B2B client (media conglomerate with 20k+ employees) and is piloting psycho-education content and ongoing support group services for their Asian employee resource groups in partnership with Mindworx. Anise won best in feasibility category and overall 2nd place at a national mental health challenge sponsored by Google. Furthermore, Anise placed as one of 7 finalists out of 400+ participating teams at the Rice Business Plan Competition, where they were the only finalist team led by women of color. Lastly, Anise was admitted to the Harvard Business School Rock Accelerator and the Harvard Innovation Lab Venture Program.
Founding Team Background
Co-founders, Alice Zhang and Nisha Desai, met while pursuing their MBA at Harvard Business School (HBS) and have been working on Anise together full-time since graduating. Both Alice and Nisha are passionate about normalizing mental health care in communities of color where it is often overlooked, and they are driven by their own personal experiences. Alice’s best friend in high school was diagnosed with bipolar disorder and attempted suicide; she saw the direct impact of family stigma that led to his dropout from treatment. During college, Nisha experienced 14 classmates committing suicide in just 5 years; the majority of them were POCs who didn’t have a satisfactory support option. Both co-founders have separately had their own struggles in finding mental health support that works for them. Collectively, Alice and Nisha have 15+ years of experience in healthcare. Alice studied Neuroscience in college, worked in healthcare consulting and in product development at a digital health startup, Galileo. She is also a certified health and wellness coach. Nisha spent her early career as a healthcare investor focused on the behavioral health landscape and more recently as a Senior Product Manager at Humana where she built and operated tech-enabled mental health solutions.
What They Need Help With
Anise just launched in beta in California and is accepting new client applications. The team is also growing and would love intros to companies that might want to offer this service to their employees and to potential candidates for Clinical Operations and Strategy Lead and Head of Engineering roles. Connect with the Anise Health team.
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