We built emotilink because finding a therapist who fits shouldn’t be the hard part.
Two founders. One broken system seen from both sides.
Two people. One broken system. The same answer.
Chris Capshaw, Founder
Chris spent years inside the U.S. mental health system trying to find a therapist who actually worked for him — a process that consumed time, money, and a fair amount of optimism. He concluded that the hard part wasn’t therapy itself but the system around it: provider lists that were out of date, networks that quietly stopped accepting new patients, and matching algorithms that prioritized whoever the platform needed to fill.
He built emotilink to be the platform he wished had existed when he was searching.
Based in Dallas with his family.
Vanessa Cutler, MD, Co-Founder
Vanessa is a practicing physician and psychiatrist in New York and Chris’s friend for over 25 years. She saw the same broken system from the clinician side: opaque matching that prioritized platform economics over fit, overhead rates that pushed talented therapists off marketplace platforms, structures that consistently failed both sides of the couch.
She co-founded emotilink because she wanted a platform that worked for the clinician as well as it worked for the person seeking care — and that didn’t ask either to compromise on the clinical relationship.
Continues to practice psychiatry. Clinical reviewer of record on all consumer-facing content.
Chris and Vanessa have been friends for over 25 years and business partners for several. The founding is not the meeting point — it’s the result of years of looking at the same problem from opposite sides and slowly converging on the same answer.
The platform they built reflects both perspectives in its mechanics: the user chooses, the provider sets terms, and the platform stays out of the room.
A three-city company.
Dallas. New York. Chicago.
Chris is in Dallas. Vanessa practices in New York. Our headquarters are in Chicago at MATTER, the leading healthcare accelerator, in the Merchandise Mart.
The geography is itself emblematic of the product. Care, when delivered well, isn’t constrained by zip code.
What we’re building.
emotilink is a national tele-therapy marketplace, available on iOS. Users browse licensed mental health providers and choose for themselves. Therapists set their own rates, control their caseload, and keep their client relationships if they ever leave the platform. Founding therapists pay 5% — well below the 20–40% standard for the category.
A low-stakes way to know quickly if this match will work — and a platform that pays providers fairly enough to be there for the long run.
Member of MATTER.
emotilink is a member of MATTER, the leading healthcare accelerator, located at the Merchandise Mart in Chicago. MATTER membership gives us access to a network of clinicians, founders, and operators who have built the standout digital health companies of the past decade.
What we are not.
We are not the other guys.
We don’t employ therapists. We don’t dictate methodology. We don’t track session content. We are a marketplace, not an employer.
We are not a coaching platform.
Every provider on emotilink is a licensed mental health professional. We don’t allow unlicensed coaches.
We are not an AI therapist.
emotilink connects users to human providers. We are not, and have no plans to be, a chatbot or AI tool that mediates clinical work. The therapist-patient relationship is and remains human.
Get in touch.
Find someone to talk to. Find someone who cares. Find your fit with emotilink.