AI-Powered Mental Health Platform Secures $825,000 in FundingAI-Powered Mental Health Platform Secures $825,000 in Funding

Funding will support new applications such as an AI assistant and AI-driven client chat

Heidi Vella, Contributing Writer

October 4, 2024

2 Min Read
Getty Images

Mental health startup Yung Sidekick has secured $825,000 in pre-seed funding to develop its AI-powered platform for mental health professionals.

The round was led by Altair Capital and Ultra.VC, with participation from other VCs and angel investors.

The Yung Sidekick platform captures therapists’ session audio and automatically generates a transcript, from which the AI can extract electronic health record ready progress notes and detailed session reports in 2 minutes. 

These include key topics, symptoms, medications, goals and other insights. The platform can be easily integrated into a therapist’s clinical software, according to the company. 

Yung Sidekick was founded in 2022 to address the increasing work burden placed on psychologists, 45% of whom have reported feeling burned out due to the increased workload, according to the American Psychological Association.

"Every minute spent on paperwork is a minute taken away from patient care,” said Stanley Efrem, co-founder of Yung Sidekick. 

“Our mission is to empower mental health professionals to dedicate more time to meaningful client interactions by reducing administrative overload. By streamlining documentation, we enable therapists to focus on what truly matters — improving lives." 

This new pre-seed funding will enable the company to accelerate its product development and roll out new features that will streamline supervision, assessment and client interaction, it said.

Related:Smartphone App Uses AI to Detect Diabetes-Related Vision Disorder

For example, the company is launching an AI assistant that therapists can consult about clients. The AI can quote a client's exact words from a session or remind the therapist of specific details about their biography or treatment plan. 

Main_screen.png

It can also flag weekly diagnosis markers of depression, anxiety and life satisfaction, and signal when further assessments may be needed.

This is a direction the company plans to pursue in the long term, according to CEO and co-founder Michael Reider. He said while the platform’s current focus is on helping therapists, its long-term vision is to evolve Yung Sidekick into a provider-patient platform.

“We plan to introduce more patient-focused features, such as AI-driven client chat, to create a more holistic and effective therapy experience for both sides of the therapeutic process,” he said. 

The platform is Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act-compliant and does not store personal health information or client details and every report and note generated is anonymized, and all audio recordings are immediately deleted after processing. There is a “dictate recap” feature for therapists who prefer not to record sessions.

Related:Revolutionizing Health Care Delivery With Artificial Intelligence

About the Author

Heidi Vella

Contributing Writer, Freelance

Heidi is an experienced freelance journalist and copywriter with over 12 years of experience covering industry, technology and everything in between.

Her specialisms are climate change, decarbonisation and energy transition and she also regularly covers everything from AI and antibiotic resistance to digital transformation. 

Sign Up for the Newsletter
The most up-to-date AI news and insights delivered right to your inbox!

You May Also Like