via telehealth
network
Leadership mental health for venture-backed startups, Series A through C.
A private clinical channel for founders and senior leaders carrying a company through the scaling rounds, where the job changes faster than anyone can grow into it and the cost lands on a handful of people. Matched clinicians. Extended sessions. No board or company visibility into care.
A private clinical channel for the leadership of a scaling startup.
This page is for founders, chiefs of staff, heads of people, and the leadership teams themselves at Series A to C companies scoping a leadership-tier mental health channel that sits outside the company benefits stack and outside the board's line of sight. If that is you, the rest of this page is the briefing document.
CEREVITY operates as a clinical network with direct relationships between the network, the clinicians, and the contracting company. There is no third-party broker layer. Leaders are matched, not first-served. Scheduling and intake run through CEREVITY infrastructure. Care is private-pay, out-of-network, and structurally outside the company benefits channel by design, which matters when the people who most need it are the same people the board evaluates.
Our clinicians are independent licensed professionals. Many have worked with venture-backed leaders through scaling, fundraising, and leadership transitions, and they understand the Series A-to-C arc from inside their consulting rooms. CEREVITY exists because the leadership tier of a scaling startup carries a clinical load the company's young benefits stack was never built to hold, and because that channel needs to be separate from anything the board can see.
The leadership tier of a scaling startup is not the workforce your early benefits stack was built for.
A Series A to C company has a benefits stack assembled in a hurry for a young, growing team. It was never designed for the specific clinical load on the handful of people steering the company, and those people will not route care through a system the board can see anyway.
Startup leaders present with a recognizable clinical profile: high-functioning anxiety sustained across consecutive raises, the isolation of being the person everyone looks to for certainty, decision fatigue from a role that resets every two quarters, and the identity fusion that makes every metric feel like a verdict on the self. The scaling rounds compress all of this into a few people who are explicitly told to keep performing.
There is also a structural reality the rounds make unavoidable. In Noam Wasserman's research on roughly 10,000 startups, about a quarter of founding CEOs had been replaced by the Series A and more than half had been replaced as CEO by the Series C. The leadership tier is moving through the highest-stakes transitions of their careers, and the company they are building is also the entity evaluating whether they keep the seat.
What changes when the channel is built around this profile: matched clinicians with experience treating leaders through scaling and transition, session formats long enough to do real work between board cycles, scheduling that survives a fundraise, and a confidentiality posture that gives the company and the board no visibility into who has engaged or with what.
What CEREVITY clinicians actually treat in the startup leadership tier.
The clinical scope is built around the presenting profile of leaders at Series A to C companies, not the workforce-wide profile a young benefits stack is built for.
Scaling-stage overwhelm
The job changes faster than anyone can grow into it. Every two quarters the role is different, the team is bigger, and the founder is expected to have already become the leader the next stage requires. The overwhelm is structural, not personal.
Fundraise pressure cycles
The all-consuming sprint of a raise, then the depressurization after a close or the spiral after a pass. Across the A-to-C arc the cycle repeats, and each round raises the stakes and the scrutiny.
High-functioning anxiety
Performance held together at cost. The board update looks strong and the leader is running on empty in a way no one on the cap table can see. Extremely common across founders and senior hires alike.
Board and tenure stress
Reporting to a board that controls the next check and, increasingly, the seat itself. Carrying that evaluation while projecting confidence to the team is a chronic stressor the rounds intensify.
Founder-to-CEO transition
Becoming a manager of managers, then a leader of leaders, is a clinical transition as much as a professional one. The skills that founded the company are not the skills the Series C company needs, and that gap surfaces personally.
Identity fusion with the company
When the company is the leader's whole identity, every metric becomes a verdict on the self. Separating the person from the company is its own clinical project, and it gets harder as the company grows.
Leadership isolation
The person everyone looks to for certainty has nowhere to be uncertain. That structural isolation compounds across the rounds and is one of the most reliable and most treatable issues in the leadership profile.
Co-founder and team conflict
The most consequential relationships in the company are also the least supported. Co-founder tension and leadership-team friction drive a meaningful share of failures and respond to clinical work the way any relationship does.
Three session formats, each chosen for the work.
Most benefits programs offer one session length. CEREVITY offers three, because different kinds of clinical work need different amounts of time. The choice is made between the clinician and the leader, not by what a payor will reimburse.
The steady cadence of ongoing therapy. Most clients spend most of their care in this format.
For work that needs more room than a standard hour. Focused work on a specific transition or decision.
For work that needs uninterrupted time to reach resolution within a single session.
The 50-minute format supports ongoing weekly work. The 90-minute format gives room for deeper sessions around a raise or a leadership change. The 3-hour format exists for intensive work, the leader coming out of a close, a layoff, or a co-founder break. Because CEREVITY operates outside the insurance reimbursement model, session length is set by the clinical work, not by what a payor will reimburse. That is the structural reason all three formats can exist on the same network.
Ready to scope a leadership-tier briefing?
Briefings are scoped to your company and leadership team. We respond personally within 48 business hours with proposed times and any prepared materials relevant to the shape you are evaluating.
Request a briefing →How a founder is matched.
Matched, not first-served. Here is the process that produces the match for a venture-backed leader.
The eligible individual submits a confidential intake form covering presenting issues, modality preference, professional context, and scheduling parameters. The form is operated by CEREVITY, not by a broker.
Intake is reviewed by CEREVITY's clinical leadership against the network's active capacity, current licensure footprint, and modality availability. This is the step that does not exist in an EAP.
A specific clinician is matched to the founder based on the review. The founder receives the match with the clinician's profile, modality, and credentials, plus a direct online scheduling link.
The founder schedules directly through CEREVITY infrastructure. No phone handoff. First sessions are typically scheduled within 5 to 10 business days of the match.
Care continues with the matched clinician on the cadence the clinical work requires, in 50-minute, 90-minute, or 3-hour sessions, without an employer-imposed cap.
Capability comparison for Venture-Backed Startup Leaders (Series A-C).
A vendor evaluation framework on the dimensions that matter when scoping a leadership-tier-tier offering for founders. Both models have a place. They are designed for different populations.
| // Dimension | Typical EAP | Exec-tier platform | CEREVITY |
|---|---|---|---|
| Network model | Broker layer between company and contractor roster | Single-vendor platform, W-2 or contracted pool | Independent clinical network with direct relationships |
| Clinician assignment | First contractor to reply with availability | Algorithmic matching on intake-form inputs | Clinical review by network leadership |
| Intake & scheduling | Phone handoff to clinician's line | App-based intake and scheduling | Network-operated intake, direct online scheduling |
| Session formats | Standard 50-min; capped session counts | Standard 45 to 50-min sessions | 50-min, 90-min, and 3-hr formats, no cap |
| Clinical scope | Acute, broadly applicable concerns | Workforce-wide, executive tier as upsell | Built around Venture-Backed Startup Leaders (Series A-C) presenting issues |
| Modality fit | Generalist talk therapy | Generalist therapy with some specialty | CBT, DBT, psychodynamic, matched at intake |
| Reach | National via roster density | National telehealth, roster variance | All 50 states via telehealth |
| Payment model | Company-sponsored, in-network | Per-employee-per-month seat pricing | Private-pay, out-of-network, partnership agreement |
| Company visibility | Aggregate, broker-mediated | Vendor dashboards with engagement | Administrative reporting only |
| Right fit for | Workforce-wide acute support | Mid-tier ongoing with executive add-on | Venture-Backed Startup Leaders (Series A-C), end-to-end |
What the company sees, and what it does not.
For a leadership-tier-tier channel to function, the participating founder has to trust that engaging with it does not create visibility into their care. CEREVITY is built around that requirement.
- Confirmation that contracted services were provided to eligible individuals.
- Aggregate utilization at the partnership level, where contractually appropriate.
- Invoicing and eligibility reconciliation.
- Nothing tied to a specific named founder's clinical content.
- Whether a specific named founder has scheduled, attended, or engaged.
- What clinical issues are being addressed, or which clinician is assigned.
- Session notes, treatment plans, or diagnostic information.
- Any attendance detail at the individual level.
Clinicians are independent licensed professionals operating under their own licensure and the confidentiality and privacy obligations that attach to it. Protected health information is held within the clinical infrastructure, and the agreements governing it are defined in writing before the partnership goes live.
Clinical records, session content, and individual engagement data sit inside the clinical platform. The administrative layer the partner interacts with is structurally separate from the clinical layer.
Eligibility lists are maintained on the partner side and confirmed at the point of intake. Administering eligibility does not require the partner to receive clinical information back.
A Business Associate Agreement is executed where the partnership structure requires it. The partnership agreement defines administrative reporting scope in writing before going live.
What the first 30 days look like.
The hardest part of a leadership-tier-tier partnership is not the contract. It is the period between signature and the first founder in care.
A 60-minute kickoff with your team and CEREVITY's partnership lead. We confirm the partnership shape, the eligibility model, the administrative reporting scope, and the internal owner. The BAA, where applicable, is executed in this window.
Your team provides the eligible-individual list. CEREVITY confirms it against the network side and establishes the verification path that runs at the point of intake. Only eligibility confirmation flows forward.
CEREVITY provides a confidential, leadership-tier-appropriate comms template explaining the benefit, the privacy posture, and how to access intake. Your team adapts it to your voice.
Eligible individuals begin intake on their own cadence. First sessions are typically scheduled within 5 to 10 business days. By day 30, the partnership is operational and a quarterly review cadence is in place.
The business case for the head of people and the founder.
Three axes a startup's leadership can defend to the board or to itself. The numbers will vary by company; the structural argument does not.
Leadership continuity is the cheapest thing a scaling company can protect.
An unplanned departure or breakdown in the leadership tier during a scaling round is among the most expensive events a startup can absorb: a search, a transition, lost momentum against the runway, and a signal to the board and the team. Given how routinely the rounds churn leadership, protecting the durability of the people you already have is leverage on capital already raised.
Leadership performance is the highest-leverage input the company has.
A founder or senior leader running at 70 percent is not a 30 percent loss to one function. At Series A to C, the leadership team's capacity is the variable that most determines whether the company hits the milestones that unlock the next round. Recovery of clinical capacity flows downstream into hiring, fundraising, and the decisions that compound.
A real leadership-care benefit helps you keep the team you fought to hire.
Senior operators joining a startup increasingly weigh how the company treats its leaders. A named, confidential, leadership-tier mental health channel the team can use without the board watching is a differentiating signal in a competitive hiring market and a concrete answer to how the company supports the people carrying it.
Questions founders and their teams ask first.
Clinicians in the CEREVITY network are independently licensed professionals operating under their own licensure and the confidentiality and privacy obligations that attach to it. The handling of any protected health information, and the specific agreements that govern it including any Business Associate Agreement, are defined in writing in the partnership agreement before the partnership goes live, scoped to your company's structure.
No. Administrative reporting only. The company receives confirmation that contracted services were provided to eligible individuals and aggregate utilization where contractually appropriate. The company and the board do not see whether a specific named leader has scheduled, attended, or engaged, what clinical issues are being addressed, or which clinician is assigned. This is contractually scoped before the partnership goes live.
No. CEREVITY is a structural complement. Most companies keep their existing benefits and any EAP in place for the team and add CEREVITY as the leadership-tier private-pay channel for the founders and senior leaders specifically.
That is scoped in the briefing. Most companies define eligibility around the founding team and a defined leadership tier. The scope can expand as the company grows, and the right boundary depends on your stage and structure.
No. CEREVITY is private-pay and out-of-network by design. The structure is intentional: it is the only way to deliver the clinical scope, session formats, and confidentiality posture the leadership tier requires.
Pricing depends on the shape of the engagement, the size of the eligible leadership population, and how the company administers benefits. The briefing call is where we identify the right structure, and the cost falls out of that, not the other way around.
First sessions are typically scheduled within 5 to 10 business days of intake, depending on modality requirements and scheduling parameters. Clinicians are available nationwide via telehealth, which matters for a distributed team.
Through a briefing call. Use the form below or email [email protected] directly. Briefings are scoped to your company; we respond personally within 48 business hours.
Tell us about your company. We respond within 48 business hours.
Briefings are scoped to your company. Share a few details below and we will respond personally with proposed times and any prepared materials relevant to the leadership-tier channel you are evaluating.
The structural argument on this page is based on the firsthand experience of CEREVITY clinicians who have served on EAP panels, combined with widely-published industry estimates of EAP utilization and Venture-Backed Startup Leaders (Series A-C)-specific data where cited. Specific contractual scopes, including the administrative reporting boundary and the BAA structure, are confirmed in writing in the partnership agreement before any partnership goes live.
