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See Correction/Clarification at the end of this article.
SonderMind, a fast-growing healthtech company based in Denver, recently laid off 17% of its workforce or 49 employees, the company confirmed with the Denver Business Journal on Jan. 18.
Recent layoffs at SonderMind were made with profitability and growth in mind, SonderMind CEO and co-founder Mark Frank said in a statement to the DBJ.
“To ensure we are on a path toward both continued growth and profitability, we made the decision to make our organization leaner and more efficient,” Frank said. “This resulted in the difficult reality that we had to say goodbye to many of our team members. With our reduced company size, we are confident we will continue to build on our promise to clients, clinicians, payors and other partners as we realize a healthier world through improved mental wellness.”
Before the layoffs, SonderMind had 281 employees. The company now sits at 232 employees, with more than a third of its employees based in Colorado, according to SonderMind.
SonderMind, which launched in 2014, aims to make mental health services more accessible. Its marketplace connects patients with in-network providers and offers providers note-taking, messaging and outcome measurement tools. SonderMind became a tech unicorn with a valuation of $1 billion in 2021, after it raised a $150 million Series C round, and landed on Inc. Magazine’s 2023 list of the 5,000 fastest-growing, privately held businesses in America. The company declined to share its current valuation.
SonderMind went through a similarly-sized layoff in December 2022, letting go of 15% of its team — or 50 employees. These layoffs were also driven by the need to improve SonderMind’s profitability.
Over the last few years, SonderMind acquired two companies — a Silicon Valley neuroscience startup in November 2022 and a mental health service provider’s technology in March 2023. The acquisition of Total Brain in November 2022 added 30 people to SonderMind’s team. The 2023 purchase of Menlo Park, California-based Mindstrong’s tech took place one month after the company closed and let go of 128 employees. This deal added “select technology team members” to SonderMind’s staff, according to a news release.
Just last week, SonderMind hired Curt Roberts as its new president. Roberts previously worked at Utah-based Kickstart, a venture capital and private equity firm. Roberts has sat on SonderMind’s board since 2018, when he invested in the company, according to his post on LinkedIn about the new role.
SonderMind isn’t the only Denver healthtech company to go through layoffs in recent months. In October, transgender healthtech company Plume laid off 17% of its workforce, or about 27 employees.
Correction/Clarification
Before joining SonderMind, Curt Roberts worked at Kickstart, a venture capital and private equity firm based in Utah.
