Mental health startups in Europe raised $1.2bn during the boom of 2021. It’s fair to say that funding has fallen a long way since then.
Startups in the sector picked up just $343m in 2022, falling to just $80m in 2023, amid a wider pullback from digital health funding.
But despite VC confidence in the sector waning, the global mental health market is estimated to be worth $38bn this year (20% of the entire digital health market). That presents a huge opportunity for mental health startups that can convince investors to part with their cash.
So which companies have investors got their eyes on? To find out, Sifted asked VCs from Boost Capital, Molten Ventures, UNIQA Ventures, InHealth Ventures, Calm/Storm and NLC Health Ventures. There was just one catch: they couldn’t nominate portfolio companies.
Philippa Allen, investor at Calm/Storm
Calm/Storm is a healthtech fund, focusing on pre-seed and seed-stage founders.
Kanjo Health — UK
Kanjo is building a pre-diagnostic analytics tool for ADHD, autism and other mental health conditions using the latest in clinical research, bayesian networks — probability-based graph models — and GenAI. Its model enables Kanjo to build a series of personalised clinician tools to reduce rates of misdiagnosis, triage resources appropriately and monitor patients with higher degrees of accuracy. The startup was launched by female-founders Sophia Parvizi Wayne and Deepthi Upalla.
Alena — UK
Alena offers app-based, personalised therapy programmes to treat social anxiety. Using cognitive neuroscience-based assessments, Alena is completely automated and adjusts to users' changing needs without requiring a human therapist.
Limbic — UK
Limbic provides a suite of AI-enabled practice management tools for therapists. With a scientifically robust team, it employs cutting-edge machine learning models to process patient inputs, determine suitable interventions and pinpoint potential mental health issues. Its solutions also include self-referral and online triaging tools, helping streamline access to mental health services and addressing the critical need for efficient and accessible care delivery.
Clementine — UK
Clementine is an app helping women manage stress, sleep and anxiety management. The startup offers audio therapy sessions, one-to-one appointments and mindfulness resources. It steps away from the conventional approach of fixed schedules and daily tasks, allowing users to engage with content at their convenience.
Nick Ibery, lead partner UK at NLC Health Ventures
Netherlands-based NLC Health Ventures is the venture arm of venture builder NLC. The company was the most active early-stage healthtech investor in 2023.
MeOmics — UK
MeOmics is building a tool to predict the optimal drug therapy for severe mental illness. It does this by combining psychiatric and stem-cell data to create a biomarker database which can then be used by companies developing treatment.
Selfapy — Germany
Selfapy offers digital therapy for patients suffering from depression, anxiety, binge-eating, panic disorder, bulimia and chronic pain. It's a digital solution that doctors can prescribe in Germany via DiGA. With long waiting lists for mental health patients to access treatment across Europe (but especially in Germany), Selfapy bridges the time between diagnosis and the start of in-person therapy.
Samphire — UK
Samphire is building tech to address mental and physical symptoms experienced by women during their menstrual cycle, using a medical procedure called neuromodulation — which changes the activity happening in the brain by directly stimulating it. The startup’s tech delivers safe electrical pulses to targeted brain regions, clinically proven to promote neuroplasticity. This non-invasive approach can alleviate symptoms of chronic pain, depression and anxiety.
Mindstep — UK
Mindstep is a brain and mental health app to help detect and treat brain health conditions like dementia and depression. It generates valuable data for medical research while targeting prevalent conditions like anxiety, depression and dementia. With over 50k real-world brains calibrated, it offers personalised care plans resulting in statistically significant improvements in mood and cognitive biomarkers. Mindstep stands out as the first comprehensive digital therapeutics platform addressing major brain conditions in one product.
Lavanya Bhamidipati, principal at InHealth Ventures
InHealth Ventures is a London-based, healthtech-focused VC.
Blueskeye AI — UK
Blueskeye AI uses machine learning to analyse face and voice data to provide insight into a person's physical or mental health. The first clinical application they are trialling is an app-based solution for monitoring depression and anxiety in women during the perinatal period. In England, perinatal mental health problems impact 1 in 5 women and for every one-year cohort of births, long-term costs from lack of timely access to care are estimated to be £1.2bn to the NHS and social services. Bluesksye’s technology has the potential to improve patient outcomes and reduce cost of by ensuring timely interventions
Hibi Health — UK
Hibi Health is building a care coordination platform that supports families of children with developmental differences and health conditions by providing access to care management tools, tracking and expert guidance. A survey published in 2023 showed that one in five children and young people in England had a probable mental disorder, but it can be challenging for families to navigate complex care journeys. Hibi’s platform can help significantly reduce this load on caregivers by providing a single platform to manage all aspects of their child’s care.
Cumulus Neuroscience — UK
Cumulus Neuroscience is a data collection and analytics platform that combines AI-powered analytics with an EEG (electroencephalography) headset — which monitors electrical activity in the brain — for real-time remote data acquisition. Through this platform, researchers can get access to critical data and insights for clinical trials that will help deliver new therapies to patients quicker
Alvaro Alvarez del Rio, founder and investor at Boost Capital
Boost Capital is a UK-based early-stage VC.
Luca — UK
Luca is a mental health app for athletes, focusing mainly on concussion detection and treatment. It is targeting an often overlooked problem in the mental health space.
Thymia — UK
Thymia develops technology for mental health assessments. The startup is developing app-based games which, paired with its machine learning models, allow it to assess and treat multiple mental health conditions. Thymia’s assessment models combine voice, video and game behaviour to dive deeper into mental health conditions, symptoms and indicators.
Bori Farkas-Fozy, investor at Uniqa
Uniqa Ventures is the VC arm of Austrian insurance giant Uniqa.
Tellmi — UK
Tellmi offers mental health support for young people via its digital app. Users can access peer support, one-to-one therapy and mental health resources.
Neotiv — Germany
Neotiv has developed a cognitive test which is embedded in a digital platform, to enable early detection of Alzheimer's disease and follow-ups on memory problems.
Inga Deakin, principal at Molten Ventures
Molten Ventures is a London-based, publicly listed VC and fund of funds.
HelloBetter
HelloBetter is a pioneering company delivering online therapy courses, available on prescription via the DiGA system in Germany, free of charge to the patient. It has helped 50k people, according to the company, and published its randomised controlled trials widely.
