Investment firm Blackstone’s growth equity fund, Blackstone Growth, has led a $100m series E round for Ginger, a US-based mental healthcare app provider backed by health insurer Cigna and healthcare consortium Kaiser Permanente.
Ginger operates an online platform offering behavioural health coaching as well as licensed therapy and psychiatry sessions. It has partnerships in place with more than 500 organisations where it provides mental healthcare services for their employees.
The round valued Ginger at about $1bn, according to Bloomberg. It will use the funding to explore new partnerships with health plans and multinational organisations as well as to acquire new technology and clinical services for its platform.
The company has pulled in over $220m of funding to date, including $50m in a series D round in August 2020 backed by Cigna Ventures and Kaiser Permanente Ventures, on behalf of Cigna and Kaiser Permanente respectively.
Advance Venture Partners, the corporate venturing affiliate of media group Advance Publications, co-led the series D round with Bessemer Venture Partners, and it included undisclosed existing backers and private investor Jeff Weiner.
WP Global Partners had led a $35m series C round for Ginger in late 2019 featuring Kaiser Permanente Ventures, City Light Capital, Nimble Ventures, Khosla Ventures, Kapor Capital and Jeff Weiner.
Kaiser Permanente Ventures is also likely to have invested in the company’s $20m series B round in 2014. It had received at least $8.2m of funding across its series A and seed rounds from investors including Khosla Ventures, True Ventures, Kapor Capital and Romulus Capital across 2011 and 2012.