Rose Health was just acquired by California’s Precise Behavioral

Rose Health, a mental healthcare startup based in DC, will now operate under the umbrella of a bigger, California-HQed behavioral health company.

Precise Behavioral, based in Westlake Village, acquired Rose Health for an undisclosed amount. Founded earlier this year by Nitin Nanda, who also created Aligned Telehealth, Precise Behavioral offers staff and other management services for behavioral health operations.

According to the Washington Business Journal (WBJ), Rose Health will stay in its DC HQ and function as a subsidiary of Precise. Founder and CEO Kavi Misri will continue to lead the startup, as well as join the combined company’s board and become its chief innovation officer. Currently, Rose has 25 employees and Precise has under 100, but Misri expects to hire another 100 people to his team by the end of the year.

According to the WBJ, Rose Health wasn’t planning to exit, but over the summer received Precise’s offer among multiple merger and acquisition proposals. Misri felt that Nanda’s experience would be the best path forward for the startup.

The move follows Rose Health’s successful completion of several raises in the past few years. In 2020, the company raised a $1.5 million seed round followed by a $7.5 million Series A that Rose opened in April of this year. The company also has ties to the Baltimore health tech community, having started out of Johns Hopkins University and participated in a project with the Baltimore Neighbors Network (BNN) in 2020. Its website even notes an office in Baltimore’s Remington neighborhood, although Rose Health told Technical.ly via email that the company is actually based in DC.

In an April interview, Misri told Technical.ly that the company had seen strong momentum given the rise of mental healthcare during the pandemic.

“We’re seeing significant momentum, given the shift to value-based care and how the current mental health crisis has stressed the system,” Misri said. “Rose will be highly strategic for emergency responders, risk-bearing entities and mental health provider groups who seek a way to differentiate themselves in the market by leveraging Rose’s capabilities to keep the patient engaged and empowered, and to provide an evidence-based approach for self-care.”