There is a certain kind of founder story that does not start in a boardroom. It starts at 3 a.m., staring at the ceiling, bargaining with sleep like it is a stubborn landlord. Peter Hames lived that...
There is a certain kind of founder story that does not start in a boardroom. It starts at 3 a.m., staring at the ceiling, bargaining with sleep like it is a stubborn landlord. Peter Hames lived that loop. Chronic insomnia. A prescription pad offered as the grand solution. Instead, Peter Hames found Cognitive Behavioral Therapy in Professor Colin Espie’s work, ran the protocol himself, and walked out the other side. In 2010, Big Health was born in San Francisco with a simple premise: if evidence works, scale it.
Fast forward to February 11, 2026. Big Health just secured $23.7M in strategic funding. Co-led by .406 Ventures and AlleyCorp, with CVS Health Ventures, Blue Venture Fund, Sandbox Clinical Ventures, Gilde Healthcare, and Supermoon Capital in the mix. When that lineup writes checks, it is not for vibes. It is for validation. Congratulations to CEO Yael Berman and Chief Product & Technology Officer John Walsh for carrying this next chapter forward, and respect to co-founders Peter Hames and Professor Colin Espie for building the foundation that made this round inevitable.
Big Health is not selling mindfulness wallpaper. It builds FDA-cleared prescription digital therapeutics. SleepioRx for chronic insomnia. DaylightRx for generalized anxiety disorder. Software as a medical device, reimbursable, eligible under CMS Digital Mental Health Treatment codes. In a market where nearly 20% of U.S. adults face anxiety disorders and roughly 1/3 wrestle with persistent sleep issues, access is the choke point. Big Health turns smartphones into structured therapy, grounded in more than 100 peer-reviewed publications and 13 randomized controlled trials involving over 28,000 participants.
The outcomes speak in numbers, not adjectives. Up to 76% of SleepioRx patients show improvement in insomnia. 71% of DaylightRx patients improve in generalized anxiety disorder symptoms, with remission rates north of 70% in specific studies. An 18-month evaluation at a Fortune 500 employer showed 28% lower annualized healthcare costs among Sleepio users. Over 750,000 individuals have used Big Health treatments across the U.S. and UK. More than 10M covered lives have had reimbursed access. That is not theory. That is throughput.
This $23.7M is about commercialization muscle. Integrating into provider workflows. Expanding health system partnerships like Henry Ford Health and Northwell Health. Leaning into Medicare reimbursement through CMS DMHT G-codes while strengthening payer rails with CVS Health and Evernorth. Digital therapeutics took its punches as a category. Big Health answered with data, FDA clearance, and revenue pathways.
The lesson for founders is surgical. Evidence first. Reimbursement strategy early. Partnerships that move product through real channels, not just pitch decks. Build something that regulators clear, payers cover, and clinicians trust. Then raise capital to accelerate, not to experiment.