ThriveOn

“Mental illness is the black sheep of healthcare,” ThriveOn CEO Alejandro Foung opened to the SXSW Accelerator audience. “We're about to fix this.”

San Francisco-based ThriveOn has created a mobile platform that delivers mental healthcare on demand by connected individuals to licensed mental health professionals. The company addresses stress, anxiety, and depression but currently focuses on students with body image issues.

Using a $4 million NIH grant, ThriveOn has planted its first product, Healthy Body Image (HBI) in 30 universities including Harvard, Stanford, and the University of Chicago. “We've shown to reduce disorder eating behavior by 50%,” Foung said, citing research data from the company. “We've shown to get five times more use compared to alternatives at a fifth of a therapist's time and at a tenth of the cost.”

The company offers an online assessment tool for customers and currently plans to control cost by keeping services local – connecting patients to a mental health professional in their area. ThriveOn will be direct-to-consumer and will charge $75-85 per month for a subscription to its service. The service will not be reimbursed by insurance, but Foung commented that it is still cheaper than a private practice. Furthermore, he said that professional services are far more effective than a peer-to-peer model.

ThriveOn was the 2014 winner of the SXSW Accelerator Competition in the Health Technology category.