Kooth is a leading player in digital mental health care. Its platform provides a clinical and cost effective ‘digital-first’ model that blends self-therapy with professional support and is now freely available to more than 15 million people in the UK.

Founded in 2001, Kooth held its IPO in September 2020, raising £26m through its listing on the AIM market of the London Stock Exchange. CEO Tim Barker describes how the IPO has helped the business drive growth and increase its social impact.

What was your experience of the IPO process and how did it differ from your previous fundraising experiences?

One of the most memorable aspects of our IPO was that it was in 2020, which meant that we held the whole roadshow over Zoom. We were one of the first companies to list on AIM after the Covid pandemic hit.

The IPO process is very different from raising funds from private equity or venture capital. With the latter, you are selling the dream and that hockey stick growth chart that you hope one day you will deliver. When you come to AIM the focus is all about sustainable growth – of course, you are optimistic but you have to show where the growth opportunities lie.

There’s another small – but big – difference; for an investor roadshow on an IPO all your presentations have to be verified by your lawyer. That brings an additional level of transparency.

What lessons did you learn from the IPO process?

At an IPO you are entering an environment with high levels of governance, reporting and transparency, so you must get your systems and processes well in place beforehand.

Another important lesson is not to leave your employees behind. Fundamentally, we are a healthcare company and our people get up each morning motivated by how they can help people; they are not thinking about our interim results or our net revenue retention rates. So there is an obligation for the CEO to communicate to everybody about the reasons for becoming a public company and what that means for them.

All our employees are shareholders so they do have a vested interest in knowing how well we are doing and the direction in which we are going.

Has the IPO helped the company to attract and retain talent?

Our people join us because of our purpose. We are a new and a rare breed – we are a social impact organisation that is also a commercial business.

But there are benefits from becoming a public company in respect of talent. Potential recruits can learn a lot more about us as a company, our impact and our performance. Being a listed company means that you are open book; it is much easier to conduct your due diligence on us.

By giving people a share in Kooth, our employees readily understand the tangible value of what they have – their contribution is not being recognised by the hope of a valuation at some point in the future. They can share in our growth now.

How has the IPO supported Kooth’s expansion?

We can now fund longer term growth initiatives. One growth area that we identified at the time of our IPO were the opportunities to establish Kooth in new international markets, with the USA being the priority. We hired our first employee in the USA in 2021 and we are starting to scale; we have signed our first contract with the state of Pennsylvania to support mental healthcare in schools.

For US customers, our status as a listed company allows them to assess us more easily as a partner. We are also moving forward to license our technology to health care operators in other geographies.

What is your vision for Kooth?

The cost of mental health is expected to rise to $6 trillion globally by 2030 and we want to make effective, personalised, mental health care accessible to all, globally. Our goal is to embed our business model into health care systems and businesses both in the UK and internationally.