Sword Health, which launched 10 years ago, initially focused on virtual musculoskeletal care and then expanded into pelvic health and movement health.
The company has now grown its reach into the mental health space with an artificial-intelligence-driven care model.
Tuesday, the company publicly unveiled its mental health solution, called Mind, that combines AI and licensed clinicians to deliver continuous, personalized care. The aim, according to the company, is to shift mental health from episodic talk therapy to a "proactive, always-on support system."
Sword Health also announced a fresh investment of $40 million led by General Catalyst. That latest funding boosts the company's valuation to $4 billion, according to executives.
Khosla Ventures, Comcast Ventures, Lince Capital, Oxy Capital, Armilar, Indico Capital and Shilling also backed the funding round.
A year ago, the company pocketed a financing round of $130 million in a mix of primary and secondary sale, boosting its valuation to a reported $3 billion. The company has raised at least $380 million to date.
Sword Health executives said the company will use the fresh funding to drive more M&A deals, support its global expansion and fuel the continued development of foundational AI models into additional areas of healthcare.
In January, Sword Health acquired Surgery Hero, a U.K.-based digital health company that built solutions to help patients prepare and recover from surgery.
As the digital health IPO market begins to warm up, with competitor Hinge Health and Omada Health both successfully going public this year, many industry watchers have Sword Health on their short list of companies that could go public in 2025.
Last year, when asked about plans to go public, Virgilio "V" Bento, founder and CEO of Sword Health, said the company "has been thinking about" an IPO but doesn't have a specific date in mind.
"It will not happen before the second half of 2025," he said in an interview a year ago.
Sword Health designed its digital MSK platform based on a foundation of world-class clinicians and then built in the expansive power of proprietary AI to deliver customized care to patients from their homes, according to executives. Sword’s virtual MSK solutions include its hallmark product called Digital Therapist, which lets members connect with physical therapists and track their progress with wearable motion sensors and a personalized AI-powered exercise program.
Sword Health works with more than 1,000 enterprise clients. The company claims that since 2020, more than 500,000 members across three continents have completed 6.5 million AI sessions. The company says its virtual care solutions have saved its clients nearly $1 billion in unnecessary healthcare costs. Further, Sword Health says its outcomes, including medical cost savings, reduction in MSK pain and improved productivity, are backed by more than 40 clinical studies.
The company has been steadily building out its AI Care platform, and, last year, it rolled out its latest tech update, called Phoenix, that combines AI and human clinicians to guide and react to members during their sessions through natural conversation.
In announcing its Mind solution, Sword Health noted the ongoing challenge of patients getting access to effective and high-quality mental health care. Nearly 1 billion people worldwide live with a mental health condition. In the U.S., 22.8% of adults experienced mental illness in 2021 (57.8 million people), or about 1 in 5 adults. Nearly half of the 60 million adults and children living with mental health conditions in the U.S. go without any treatment, according to the National Alliance on Mental Illness.
Sword Health's approach to mental health care delivery integrates AI with licensed, Ph.D.-level mental health specialists for a proactive, 24/7 model, executives said. The aim is to use AI to provide seamless, contextual and responsive support anytime people need it, not just when they have an appointment.
A key feature of the Mind platform is Sword's Phoenix AI Therapist, or an AI agent specifically designed to address mental health conditions. The company also developed M-band, a proprietary wearable device that captures the patient’s full environmental and physiological context and is designed to detect early indicators of depression and anxiety to enable proactive outreach by Mind clinicians.
Sword Health's Mind clinical team is comprised of Ph.D.-level mental health professionals who work in concert with the AI therapy agent to continuously engage with patients daily, according to the company.
"We've rebuilt care delivery from the ground up—replacing a century-old, labor-intensive model with AI that removes barriers to world-class care for everyone who needs it," Bento said in a statement.
"This funding is a milestone that allows us to deepen our foundational AI research and to accelerate our expansion into new healthcare verticals like mental health—a field still dominated by unscalable and ineffective models—bringing truly life-changing care to millions who struggle with mental health around the world, the same way we did it for millions with physical pain," he said.