After being named to our RealLIST Startups list in January, startup Youme has made two acquisitions to grow its work in the health tech space — and adopted a new name.
In August, Youme acquired Hurdle Health, a DC-based digital mental health platform and fellow RealLIST honoree. With the deal, the company rebranded to Backpack Healthcare. Alongside those moves, founder and CEO Hafeezah Muhammad told Technical.ly that the company made another move in this transition: acquiring SHE Health.
The acquisitions, Muhammad said, are a strategic expansion to provide more opportunities to help with the mental health crisis in the US. The company started to expand and grow and was looking to share the tech with the world when the Hurdle opportunity came up.
“That’s why we had the name ‘Youme,’ because we wanted to ensure that it was you and me, we’re in it together,” Muhammad said. “But as we continued to evolve, we had an opportunity to acquire Hurdle Health which was the first telemedicine company to put a multicultural framework in its practice.”
Backpack, based in Elkridge, Maryland, offers mental health services such as medication management and talk therapy for children and families. Hurdle worked in over 27 states, which worked well with the national expansion Backpack was planning. Muhammad also noted that Hurdle did a great job of reaching multicultural households, and she wanted to strengthen the company’s work with those patients.
