AI-powered Woebot raises $90M to scale up digital self-therapy platform

‘Dig­i­tal ther­a­pist’ Woe­bot perks up with $90M for AI-pow­ered men­tal health plat­form (Fierce­Biotech):

In news sure to excite even the most melan­choly of arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence-pow­ered chat­bots, men­tal health plat­form Woe­bot has closed its series B fund­ing round with a whop­ping $90 million.

The funds will go toward build­ing out Woebot’s AI tech­nol­o­gy and dig­i­tal ther­a­peu­tics, as well as the teams respon­si­ble for the devel­op­ment and com­mer­cial­iza­tion of the plat­form. Woebot’s tech­nol­o­gy cen­ters around the epony­mous “dig­i­tal ther­a­pist,” which uses con­ver­sa­tion­al AI soft­ware to form ther­a­peu­tic bonds with users as they dis­cuss men­tal health issues.

From there, Woe­bot can admin­is­ter dig­i­tal ther­a­pies based on clin­i­cal­ly val­i­dat­ed tech­niques, includ­ing cog­ni­tive behav­ior ther­a­py, dialec­ti­cal behav­ior ther­a­py and inter­per­son­al psy­chother­a­py … The recent del­uge of fund­ing cat­a­pults Woebot’s life­time fundrais­ing to $114 mil­lion, all direct­ed toward com­bat­ing the grow­ing epi­dem­ic of men­tal ill­ness in the U.S. and a lack of trained health­care providers.

The Announcement:

Woe­bot Health Clos­es $90 Mil­lion Series B Fund­ing Round Co-Led by JAZZ Ven­ture Part­ners and Temasek (press release):

Woe­bot Health today announced it has closed a $90 mil­lion Series B fund­ing round, bring­ing total invest­ment in the com­pa­ny to $114 mil­lion. The round was co-led by exist­ing investor JAZZ Ven­ture Part­ners and Temasek with par­tic­i­pa­tion from funds and accounts man­aged by Black­Rock Pri­vate Equi­ty Part­ners and Owl Ven­tures. Addi­tion­al par­tic­i­pants include Mirae Asset Cap­i­tal, Kick­er Ven­tures, Alum­ni Ven­tures and Gain­gels as well as exist­ing investors NEA and AI Fund. Woe­bot Health will use the pro­ceeds to accel­er­ate fur­ther devel­op­ment of its rela­tion­al plat­form and tech­nolo­gies, advance its lead dig­i­tal ther­a­peu­tic can­di­dates, and expand its team and go-to-mar­ket activ­i­ties to meet surg­ing glob­al demand for men­tal health care…

“The stress of the pan­dem­ic has made an exist­ing men­tal health cri­sis even more alarm­ing. We’re see­ing this first­hand in ado­les­cents in class­rooms across the coun­try and in adults who are report­ing symp­toms of anx­i­ety and depres­sion at a rate four times pre-pan­dem­ic lev­els,” said Ian Chiu, Man­ag­ing Direc­tor at Owl Ventures.

News in Context:

• The explo­sion of men­tal health apps rais­es sub­stan­tial opportunities–and tough questions
• Arti­fi­cial Intel­li­gence (AI)-enabled chat­bot Wysa rais­es $5.5M
• Dig­i­tal men­tal health start-up Koa Health rais­es €30M
• A call to action: We need the right incen­tives to guide eth­i­cal inno­va­tion in neu­rotech and healthcare
• The Nation­al Acad­e­my of Med­i­cine (NAM) shares dis­cus­sion paper to help empow­er 8 bil­lion minds