Wysa supports a variety of behavioural health use cases including anxiety, smoking cessation, diabetes, etc.
Wysa, an ’emotionally intelligent’ chatbot that acts as a ‘virtual coach’ that helps in managing and improving mental health, has raised a total of $1.3m in seed funding from early stage investment firm Kae Capital and angel investors.
Created as an AI coach for behavioural and mental health, Wysa offers evidence-based techniques through empathetic, anonymous conversations. So far, it has had over three million conversations with people from 30 countries. “In the last month, three people wrote to us to say that Wysa saved their life. It blew our minds that by providing an empathetic ear, even an AI bot could help people hold on when they felt they had no one to turn to,” said Jo Aggarwal, Co-Founder and CEO.
Wysa’s AI may not replace therapists, but it can reach people across barriers of geography, culture and language. It may be the only hope for many in countries like India, where there are less than 5,000 mental health professionals to serve 1.2 billion people.
Wysa started as a side project for healthcare AI start-up Touchkin, and soon acquired a life of its own. Ramakant Vempati, Co-Founder, shares, “Our technology passively detects behavioural health issues from smartphone sensors and engages them through chat. In a trial with basic smartphones in semi-urban India, we could predict depression in people with diabetes to a 90 per cent accuracy.”
Wysa collaborates with researchers across the world to validate its clinical efficacy. Dr Becky Inkster, Honorary Research Fellow, Department of Psychiatry, University of Cambridge and Visiting Scholar, School of Social Work, Columbia University has been working with Wysa to bring it to disadvantaged groups that are hard to reach.
Wysa supports a variety of behavioural health use cases including anxiety, smoking cessation, diabetes and disability support, to reduce healthcare costs and improve adherence.
Touchkin is taking Wysa to the insurance sector through its collaboration with Swiss Re, one of the leading reinsurance companies globally.