Mental health: from the unpopularity of few people to the rapid rise of investment hotspots

The knife cuts off the water and flows more, and the toast is more embarrassing.

From the ancient times, I was guilty of beasts that may appear at any time, and now I am guilty of being stuck in the "jungle" of reinforced concrete for a long time; from the past, I sweared that I had eaten up and down, but now I ate too much. The bloated body is guilty.

A "愁" word, stubbornly accompanied by humans have come to the present. A "愁" word also brings a lot of mental health problems. How to solve this ancient and troublesome problem has increasingly attracted the attention of technology startups and venture capital.

Going through, in the entire health care industry , mental health can be said to be a "corner" with less attention to risk capital. In the United States, for example, only seven related companies received financing in 2009.

In the past decade, especially since 2015, venture capital in the field of mental health has begun to flourish until peak in 2017. According to PitchBook, more than $500 million of venture capital was invested in mental health last year, with 70 investments.

US risk investment trend in the field of mental health

In the first half of this year, 30 mental health startups in the United States have received financing. In terms of segmentation, current venture capital is mainly invested in health benefits platforms for employers and technical tools designed to match patients to mental health practitioners.

From a startup perspective, most startups offer applications like meditation and assisted sleep to help patients with depression, anxiety, and insomnia improve their daily mental health.

Observing these companies, there will be an interesting finding: on the one hand, mental health services are highly dependent on doctors with professionalism and necessary qualifications; on the other hand, artificial intelligence is playing an increasingly important role. This may be an important direction for mental health counseling, counseling and treatment.

The following are five representative mental health technology companies.

1. Meditation and Meditation Application Headspace

Headspace, located in California, USA, was established in 2010 and is one of the most well-known meditation applications on the market, providing instructional meditation classes and mindfulness training.

By registering for free on the official website, users can choose the appropriate course according to their own situation through computer, mobile phone, tablet and other equipment.

The current product has 4 fee packages, a monthly course ($12.95), an annual course ($7.99 per month), a two-year course ($6.24 per month), and a permanent course ($419.95).

More than 16 million users have downloaded Headspace apps in more than 200 countries around the world.

In June 2017, the company received a $36.7 million investment from private equity fund Spectrum Equity, which was valued at $320 million. The new funds will be used to expand the international market and add more types of content, including nutrition, sports, science and children.

2. Meditation application service provider Calm

California startup Calm, founded in 2012, provides users with meditation and sit-in apps designed to help users relieve anxiety, depression and insomnia.

In June, the company received $27 million in Series A funding, led by Insight Venture Partners, Sound Ventures under Ashton Kutcher, and Harry Styles, a former member of One Direction. After the current round of financing, the company's valuation was 277 million US dollars.

Some of Calm's features are free to use, and users can subscribe to the service for $4.99 a month, including full meditation and over 100 hours of audio content. The current subscription fee is the company's main source of profit, with revenues of $22 million last year.

3. Psychotherapy and consultation platform Talkspace

New York startup Talkspace was founded in 2012 to provide psychotherapy and counseling services through websites or apps, allowing users to communicate with therapists via SMS, voice or video. The company has signed more than 2,000 licensed psychotherapists to focus on the treatment of depression and anxiety.

After the platform has passed the assessment of the treatment needs, the user determines the payment plan (starting at $49 per week) and the platform matches the appropriate psychotherapist to the user. The therapist will reply 1-2 times a day, or arrange a video chat based on user needs.

In September 2017, the company received $31 million in financing and accumulated more than $60 million in financing.

4. Medical AI robot Woebot

The AI ​​robot developed by the US startup Woebot can help users cope with mental illnesses such as depression through cognitive behavioral therapy. In addition to chat and psychological counseling, Woebot also introduces users to mental and health knowledge and sends videos and other tools based on the user's mood and needs.

Woebot is not intended to replace human psychotherapists, but rather to provide users with a mind-talking partner, especially for patients who only want to seek help late at night or on weekends, but don't want to talk to others.

Currently the bot can be used on Facebook Messenger and iOS platforms.

In March of this year, the company received a $8 million Series A financing led by NEA, and the company's valuation reached $38 million. This round of financing will be used to expand the talent team and build an AI professional knowledge system.

5. Personalized health guidance service provider Shine

New York startup Shine uses a free short message to help users get healthy. At the beginning of the establishment, the company can only provide information to users through SMS messages. Currently, users can use social software such as Facebook and Kik to obtain information.

Users can register for Shine's official website for free, set goals, and choose a fixed time point every day to receive short message guidance. Shine achieves personalized health guidance by collecting and analyzing the user's personal status.

In April of this year, the company received $2.5 million in financing from Betaworks, which is currently valued at $22.5 million.