What You Should Know:
– Marble, a youth mental health company dedicated to building the infrastructure for a new teen mental health system secures $15.5M in Series A funding led by Costanoa Ventures, with participation from Town Hall Ventures and Khosla Ventures.
– Marble will utilize the funding to significantly expand access to critical mental healthcare in schools across the U.S. and accelerate innovation and impact at scale.
The Crisis of Unmet Need in Youth Mental Health
The youth mental health crisis has reached record levels, with alarming statistics underscoring the severe gap in care. According to CDC data, one in ten teens attempted suicide in the past year, while rates of anxiety, depression, and social withdrawal continue to surge. For many families, particularly the nearly half of American youth who are Medicaid members, severe barriers to care exist, with waitlists at community clinics often stretching months or even years. School counselors, though often the first line of defense, face crippling average caseloads of 385 students, leaving them unable to meet the growing need.
Marble CEO Jake Sussman, a former teacher at a low-income charter school in Brooklyn, saw this crisis firsthand: “I saw students in crisis left waiting for help, while school counselors scrambled to find support that just wasn’t there. We built Marble to close that gap—because kids shouldn’t have to wait for help, and schools shouldn’t have to go it alone.”.
A Collaborative Model for Scale
Founded by Jake Sussman and Dan Ross, former co-founders of Headway, Marble directly partners with schools to rapidly identify students in need and connect them with licensed therapists. Since launching in New York last year, Marble has already facilitated more than 15,000 therapy sessions for kids and families who otherwise would have struggled to access care. By embedding within the school system and partnering with both Medicaid and commercial payers, the company brings evidence-based therapy directly to students, critically reaching those covered by public insurance.
Reducing Administrative Burden with AI
Marble’s platform is designed to overcome the core operational barriers that prevent access, particularly within Medicaid networks. Unlike traditional solutions, the platform incorporates collaboration, allowing school counselors, parents, and therapists to share insights in real time.
Crucially, Marble reduces the administrative burden of participating in Medicaid through key technology tools:
- AI Scribe: This tool and Marble’s proprietary therapist EHR make it significantly easier for clinicians to participate in Medicaid networks, dramatically expanding access to therapy.
- Group Therapy Programs: The platform utilizes group therapy programs to increase clinician capacity, allowing therapists to support more students simultaneously while maintaining the quality of care.
