Elliott Rapaport

Founder and CEO Birches Health

Last Reviewed: September 19, 2026

Executive Summary

Elliott Rapaport is founder and Chief Executive Officer of Birches Health, the New York-based virtual provider of specialised treatment for gambling and other behavioural addictions, which he started in 2023. The company treats gambling, sports betting, day trading, cryptocurrency, video gaming and pornography addictions through insurance-covered and state-funded virtual care, on the premise that a population which now gambles on a phone has to be met with care delivered the same way. Rapaport came to it from the digital health startup Elemy, where he worked on the supply-and-demand mechanics of a marketplace serving a vulnerable population. He also serves as Vice President of the board of the International Problem Gambling and Gaming Certification Organization, the body that certifies gambling counsellors — an unusual position for an operator, putting him inside the credentialing system his own company depends on.

Career Highlights

• Founded Birches Health in 2023 and built it into a national virtual provider of specialised care for gambling, sports betting, trading, cryptocurrency, gaming and pornography addictions.
• Raised a $10 million Series A announced in September 2025, taking total funding to roughly $20 million, with AlleyCorp, General Catalyst, Will Ventures and Haystack among the backers.
• Signed responsible-gaming partnerships with the peer-to-peer sports betting platform BettorEdge and the betting exchange Sporttrade in March 2024, putting Birches self-assessment tools, education modules and referral pathways directly inside betting apps.
• Recruited Cynthia Grant, Ph.D., formerly VP of clinical strategy at Grow Therapy and head of clinical care at Rula Health, as Vice President of Clinical in February 2026 to scale the clinical model and provider training.
• Serves as Vice President on the board of the International Problem Gambling and Gaming Certification Organization.
• Birches Health was named to the 2026 New York Digital Health 100.

Professional Journey

Rapaport read for a BA at Amherst College and an MBA at the University of Cambridge, and describes himself as a lifelong New Yorker. Before founding Birches Health he was an early executive at Elemy, the venture-backed digital health company, serving as Director of Marketplace Operations — work that meant matching clinical supply to patient demand in a fragmented market for a vulnerable population, which is structurally the same problem he took on next.

He founded Birches Health in 2023 into a gap that had opened quickly. The legalisation of sports betting across most American states multiplied the number of people exposed to gambling harm without any matching growth in specialised treatment; the National Council on Problem Gambling estimates 2.5 million Americans meet the criteria for gambling disorder and another five to eight million have mild to moderate problems, while clinicians frequently do not know to ask about it. Birches was built as a virtual, insurance-covered provider staffed by clinicians specifically trained in gambling and process addictions rather than general behavioural health.

Its go-to-market has been unusual for a treatment provider: rather than waiting for referrals, the company embedded itself in the gambling industry’s own products. In March 2024 it announced partnerships with Sporttrade, the betting exchange, and BettorEdge, the peer-to-peer betting platform, placing self-assessment tools, educational modules and referral pathways inside the apps where gambling actually happens. It also works with state governments, professional leagues, teams and operators on treatment access.

The company raised a $10 million Series A announced in September 2025, bringing its total funding to about $20 million, with AlleyCorp, General Catalyst, Will Ventures and Haystack among the investors. It has since pushed further into mobile delivery and, in February 2026, hired Cynthia Grant as Vice President of Clinical to build out care pathways from individual to group to family therapy and peer support. Alongside the operating role Rapaport sits as Vice President on the IPGGC board, working on the certification standards for the counsellors the field needs.

Education

Amherst College

BA

University of Cambridge

MBA