How She Built $30M Startup With AI For Mental Health

Empathetic AI bot with 500 million conversations

Hi! It’s Kate here today for the official first time, so welcome me! 👋

A couple of weeks ago I was tallying up my annual budget, and I noticed that I spent almost $10k on counseling sessions. And it's no joke: on average, a session with a therapist costs about $250 in the U.S. Add experience and reputation to that amount and you get the full $500 per hour. Not bad, huh?

Frankly, that amount of money shocked me. After all, with that $10,000 I could buy a new car or go on a cool, almost luxurious vacation with my family. I don't have any serious mental problems, and I wondered what I could replace such a wallet-destroying counseling session with. 

And sure enough, after 5 minutes of searching, I came across Wyse, a mental health AI startup by Jo Aggarwal with 5 million users in 90 countries. And surprisingly, unlike many chatbots, Wyse’s effectiveness has been proven in more than 15 clinical studies.

And believe me, I have an enlightening story to tell.

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From a Simple Indian Girl to an Award-Winning Entrepreneur

Jo Aggarwal is the brains behind Wysa. She was raised in a traditional Indian family. Jo’s got a tech background from IIT Delhi, but her journey to creating this mental health app is deeply personal. She:

• Faced stress and burnout herself; 

• Cared for her bipolar father-in-law;

• Was deeply in love with technology and mobile apps.

This made her understand how important mental health awareness is and gave her unique insights into the field. 

She was the founding director for Technology & Innovation at a UN-backed foundation, where her work on mobile employability after the Arab Spring helped connect over a million young people to skills and jobs. She also worked as the Managing Director at Pearson Learning Solutions and CEO at Touchkin. She earned some prestigious awards (e.g. the Stevie Silver Award and the Global Telecom Business Innovation Award) along the way.

A large part of the world lives in places where there’s 1 psychiatrist for every 250,000 people. So you need some kind of model where you can get unlimited support. - she said.

But here’s the kicker: she realized the power of tech she loved so much could help with mental health and co-founded Wysa in 2015. Even before AI became hype.

And why are we even talking about this?

Success, Expansion, and AI

Wysa has been a wild success since its launch in 2015. It raised $30.5 million in funding—enough to buy a small island! The biggest chunk came in July 2022, when they bagged $20 million to expand the AI chatbot with other mental health services.

I will guide you through Jo's inspiring journey from a shy Indian girl to an award-winning entrepreneur and speak and show how to repeat the success (at least to try) with AI tools.