OpenUp

Mental health issues are a pressing and growing challenge to our society, affecting about 25% of the European population every year. The solutions however, remain largely inaccessible due to an overloaded healthcare system. Until now. Our latest investment and addition to Rubio’s Champions of Change is the Dutch health tech venture OpenUp Group, who are on a mission to make mental health care accessible to everyone through its two subsidiaries: OpenUp and iPractice. 
 
OpenUp enables employers to give their employees direct, fast and easy access to certified psychologists and online tools to improve mental wellbeing through a fully digital web/app platform. iPractice is a ‘regular’ psychological practice that provides blended psychological care services, which means that online & chat support is interspersed with offline contact with a certified psychologist.
 
As of today, OpenUp serves more than 550 employers reaching over 150.000 employees (from leadership teams to blue collar workers) across the Netherlands, Germany and France. We believe OpenUp is democratising mental health support. With their strong founder team, growth track-record and this latest round of growth capital OpenUp can reach many more people in need and create systemic impact.

The People Behind OpenUp

OpenUp Group is founded by two serial entrepreneurs Gijs Coppens, an engineer and cleantech entrepreneur (and practising psychologist!) and Floris Rost van Tonningen, founder of ao IEX, Hyves en soople. The OpenUp Management team also consists of Bertien Dumas, a licensed doctor and former strategy consultant who leads iPractice and CFO Rik Plender, a former BCG consultant who helped build OpenUp from the start.

Gijs Coppens, founder OpenUp: “Giving millions of people access to meaningful conversation is our mission. With the growth capital we have raised from ao Rubio Impact Ventures we can broaden our platform and roll it out internationally. An important step, because we believe that only by combining technology and human contact, we can meet the challenge of this century, and provide scalable solutions for the growing European population.”

Why We Invested

Ilonka Jankovich, Partner Rubio: “I am very impressed by the drive of the OpenUp team to change the way our mental health system is organised. We expect their approach will have a tremendous impact on the day to day life of many people, especially for those who do not find their way to a psychologist. I also believe that easy and early access is very important for fast referral of people that have urgent mental issues. Looking forward to supporting the expansion of the business to ensure that as many people as possible get access!”

Impact Theme

  • Healthy Systems

SDG Alignment

  • #3 Good health and well-being

  • #8 Decent work and economic growth

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Follow the impact > OpenUp

Follow the impact > How OpenUp is democratising mental health support

Rubio’s ‘Follow the Impact’ interview series, delves into the passions, motivations, and vision of the exceptional founders we have the privilege of partnering with.

In this interview, engineer and psychologist Gijs Coppens, CEO and founder of OpenUp and iPractice tells about the importance of mental health in the workplace, the overloaded healthcare system, the challenges he’s faced of being a startup CEO, and how he navigated through the funding process.