Wysa, an AI-enabled Life Coach for mental and emotional wellness, said that it has received an undisclosed amount of investment from the Google Assistant fund.
“The Google Assistant Investments program was launched in 2018 for early-stage startups that share our passion for the digital assistant ecosystem, helping to push new ideas forward and advance the possibilities of what digital assistants can do. In the post-Covid world, managing our mental health is no longer a medical issue, but a part of everyone’s daily routine. We all need a space to vent, to feel heard, and to learn to manage negative thoughts sleep and anxiety. Wysa’s explainable AI – combining natural language understanding with clinical assurance – helps everyone build skills to manage their mental health in the new normal.” said Moez Kaderali, program manager for the Google Assistant Investments Program in a release issued by Wysa.
Launched in 2017, Wysa provides early intervention to high-risk groups through 3 methods: an AI chatbot, a library of evidence-based self-help tools, and messaging-based support from human therapists.
The startup claims it has served 1.3 million people in 30+ countries having had 90+ million conversations so far.
In a previous interview, the app’s founder Ramakant Saha had said that they don’t deal with severe mental illnesses, but instead deal with early-stage supportive therapy. The app claims to have around 3 million users in sixty-five countries. Around 80-85% of their users are abroad, and therapists in India service these users – all via text, and anonymously.
“We set out to solve for all our mental health, and have been able to show that it is possible to create access at scale that is low cost and clinically assured. In the next phase, we will go beyond the barriers of literacy and language, using Wysa on voice with local languages to create access to mental health for the next billion. In this vision, Google Assistant Fund is our ideal partner”, said Jo Aggarwal, co-founder and chief executive of Wysa.
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