Mental wellness startup MindFi operates throughout APAC, but wants to provide “culturally competent” care in each of its markets. To do that, it develops programs for its app, available as an employee benefit, with local vendors that take into account religion, gender stereotypes, racial representation, communication style and values, the co-founder told TechCrunch. and CEO Bjorn Lee.
Today, the Singapore-based company announced that it has closed an oversubscribed $2 million seed round, with the participation of returning investors M Venture Partners and Global Founders Capital. Angel investors included Carousell co-founder Marcus Tan, Carro executive Kenji Narushima, and Spin co-founder Derrick Ko.
MindFi (short for Mind Fitness) participated in the Y Combinator Summer 2021 Cohort. It currently operates throughout the Asia-Pacific region, including Sinagpore, Hong Kong and Australia, offering its services in 16 languages. His corporate clients include Visa, Willis Towers Watson and Patsnap. In total, MindFi’s products serve 100,000 employees at 35 employers in 15 markets.
While mental health startups have gotten a lot of funding in the United States, especially during the pandemic, is still a nascent space in much of Asia. MindFi is among a group of startups working to change that. Others who have recently raised funds include Intellect (another Y Combinator student) and Thoughtful.
The MindFi app contains self-directed mental wellness programs, community forums, group therapy, and an AI-based matchmaking system for trainers and therapists. User profiles aggregate MindFi data with information from their fitness wearables, including sleep, heart rate, and daily activity.
Lee told TechCrunch that his seed funding will be used to accelerate the development of its AI engine, advance the integration of physiological data from wearable devices into mental health data from MindFi, and work with local experts to create programs in the application in its key markets of APAC. Although Lee said there is a relatively low availability of licensed mental health professionals in APAC compared to the US or Europe, it’s important to make sure your programs fit into diverse cultural contexts so users feel comfortable getting support.
In a statement, M Ventures partner Mayank Parekh said: “Mental health has traditionally been overlooked in most countries, even more so in fast-growing Asia. We believe the market is currently underserved and, as early founding investors, we are delighted to be working with the MindFi team, who together bring complementary skills and knowledge to solve an important problem.”
