Charlotte Hu / Business Insider
Alma CEO Harry Ritter
Non-invasive, simple, and personal. That's how Alma wants to remake the experience of going to see a therapist.
Stepping out of the elevator on the 21st floor at 515 Madison Avenue in Manhattan, you might just think you're headed into a meeting at any other office space housing startups of various sizes.
Inside, however, the floor is home to Alma, a co-working space geared specifically toward therapists looking for a place to meet with their patients. Alma, which has raised $4.5 million in seed funding, opened its first location on October 10.
Therapists who become Alma members can use the space to hold individual therapy meetings and group sessions.
Before starting Alma, CEO Harry Ritter was vice president of care delivery at health insurer Oscar Health. There, he helped create 'the doctor's office of the future.' Oscar had worked to bring mental health professionals into the space, but Ritter, a physician by training, noticed that they faced key challenges: the therapists often practiced on their own and space to meet with patients was hard to find and secure for therapists with patchwork schedules.
So he created Alma to fix that. So far, Alma's signed on about 30 therapists, and it has the capacity to support around 115 providers.
Take a look inside the practice, where succulents and calming spaces abound.
