Mental Health Investor Sentiment Survey: Extreme Optimism Going Into 2021

During the last week of December 2020, I surveyed 150 mental health startup investors. I asked for their opinions on various issues, such as the latest investment trends in the industry as well as valuation expectations.

I’ve summarized the results below and presented the data as objectively as I can. My goal here is to share insights that founders and investors can leverage as they move into a new year of building, investing in and supporting entrepreneurs who are solving one of the greatest problems of our time around mental health and emotional wellbeing. Below you will find a few of my thoughts presented next to the data. I’m trying to make sense of it just as you are, but I wanted to share this with the hope that it does help everyone in our space.

Although this is not a scientific survey, I believe that the results can help us understand the challenges and opportunities in the mental health startup space. I’m sharing my thoughts along with the data in the hopes that we can learn together as we all work to support entrepreneurs in this space.

Key Takeaways

1. I was surprised at the valuation expectation results. I expected investors to want to see multiples below 10x annual recurring revenue (ARR), but the bulk of investors seem to…