OurRitual, a platform focused on enhancing the relationships of everyday couples through professional experts and digital tools, has announced the successful completion of a $5.2 million seed funding round. This new investment is expected to fuel the development of new products and drive further adoption of the platform.
The funding round was led by Venrex, a prominent global consumer fund, with participation from FJ Labs, Active Partners, GroundUp Ventures, 97212 Ventures, and angel investors David Siegel (former CEO of MeetUp) and Michelle Kennedy (CEO of Peanut and board advisor/director of Bumble). Additional investors include Samsung, Learn VC, Gaingels, Tiferes Ventures, Ventures Together, Liebenthal Ventures, Rose Street Capital, JJ Hodari, and Tamar Lifschitz. Combined with its initial pre-seed funding of $2 million, this brings OurRitual’s total funding to $7.2 million.
“In recent years, we’ve observed a broad increase in the demand for therapy, particularly couples therapy. While traditional solutions exist, we believe that OurRitual offers a significantly better customer experience. By increasing personalization and convenience, OurRitual makes effective support much more accessible,” said Tom Fleming, Managing Partner at Venrex. “We are excited by the traction that OurRitual is seeing. Coupled with their scalable model, we believe there is huge headroom for growth across North America, Europe and worldwide.”
OurRitual also announced the appointment of renowned clinical psychologist and psychoanalyst Dr. Orna Guralnik as the company’s Chief Clinical Officer. Dr. Guralnik is widely recognized for her role in the docuseries Couples Therapy, where she guides couples through real-life therapy sessions. She brings extensive experience to the role, including her work at NYU and the National Institute of Psychology, and as co-founder of the Center for the Study of Dissociation and Depersonalization at Mount Sinai Medical School.
“I am delighted with the growth we’ve seen at OurRitual over the past year and in which we provided over 15,000 sessions for our members,” said David Pruwer, co-founder and CEO of OurRitual. “Today’s inspiring news about Dr. Orna Guralnik, combined with our new round of investment, is testament to the growing interest in an alternative to more traditional therapy for both couples and individuals looking to build their relationships into their full potential.”
OurRitual offers a modern alternative to traditional couples therapy by combining short, impactful sessions with digital support tools. The platform’s relationship experts conduct 20-40 minute video sessions with couples or individuals, allowing them to address their issues more efficiently and at a lower cost than conventional therapy. The company’s data shows that this approach yields similar improvements in just one month as compared to three months of traditional therapy.
The platform currently provides services through more than 50 highly trained relationship experts, offering couples the opportunity to integrate new ideas and practices between sessions. Informative content and personalized recommendations are delivered via video and text, enhancing the overall therapy experience.
Based on surveys of thousands of users, OurRitual identified the top six issues couples face today: communication issues, overcoming infidelity, long-distance relationships, managing conflicts more effectively, relationship viability, and improving sexual intimacy. Dr. Guralnik noted, “What’s interesting here is that this new data shows that what couples first notice is that they are having trouble communicating. The fact that nearly half of OurRitual’s members have never participated in traditional therapy before is a sign that they are tapping a large and underserved audience.”
The OurRitual app has helped more than 2,000 relationships over the past year, with 80% of users based in the US.
