Artificial Intelligence (AI) meets Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT): Wysa raises $20M to scale up mental health chatbot

Wysa raises $20 million to expand its therapist chatbot into a wider set of mental health services (TechCrunch): Wysa, a popular mental health app originally founded in India around an AI chatbot that helps users talk through their feelings, has raised $20 million in a Series B funding round to expand its business on the heels of hitting 4.5 million users in 65 countries. The all-equity round is led by India’s digital health-focused venture capital fund HealthQuad, with participation also from British International Investment (BII), the U.K.’s development finance institution. The plan will be to use the money to double down on its home market as well as the U.S. and U.K, where it already has respectively had approvals from the FDA and the National Health Service (NHS) and is used by the latter as part of its online mental health services. … “Typically, access to a mental health service is gated. It is restricted by some kind of diagnosis — saying only if you are severe enough you will be able to get to speak to a therapist because obviously therapy is expensive and somebody’s got to pay for it,” he (Note: Ramakant Vempati, Wysa’s co-founder) said. In contrast, he noted that the app offers “early engagement and a safe space where people can come in and anonymously just talk about what’s bothering them.” Vempati underlined that Wysa works as a three-state solution. The first part of it is available to the masses as an AI chat offering, whereas its second p...
Source: SharpBrains - Category: Neuroscience Authors: Tags: Brain/ Mental Health Technology & Innovation AI chatbot British International Investment CBT cognitive-behavioral-therapy digital therapeutics HealthQuad mental health app therapist WhatsApp Wysa Source Type: blogs