Five female founded mental health start-ups to watch

As the femtech world and wellness industry start to combine. We explore the mental health apps, startups and female-founded businesses you need to know.

Mental health conditions, especially after two years of pandemic restrictions and lockdowns, are on the rise. It is estimated that 1 in 4 people in England will experience some form of mental health issue such as depression or anxiety each year.

Spiritune

Spiritune combines principles of neuroscience and music therapy to inspire positive mental health outcomes. It aims to help reduce stress while increasing emotional regulation, productivity and performance through the music-based app.

The app was created by Jamie Pabst after she struggled with her own stress levels while working in the finance industry in New York. She realised the lack of accessible resources and wanted to create something impactful. The company highlights that headphones can become health tools allowing people to support their emotional health and perform better.

Jamie wrote: “Music is one of the most powerful stimuli that addresses the brain networks that underlie stress, emotions, motivation and reward. My vision to combine the effectiveness of music therapy and the accessibility of audio to help people better manage stress drove the creation of Spiritune.

Appreciating the role our auditory system plays in our health through my mom’s hearing loss, and understanding the significance of music in neurological function through my sister’s pursuits in music therapy, I am dedicated to bringing the vast benefits of music to people and organizations globally to create better health outcomes.”

It also offers a workplace setting that can help employers to boost productivity and employee well-being.

Thymia

Thymia is a health tech company with a difference founded by CEO Emilia Molimpakis.

Thymia researchers developed a game based on neuropsychology combined with facial micro-expression analysis and speech pattern analysis to make faster mental health assessments. Its’s system allows clinicians a fun and engaging way to monitor their patient’s health. The game records subtle differences that doctors may miss and it also offers a way to monitor patients from home.

The app may have increased benefits for women in that it is also being developed to search for early signs of Alzheimer’s and Parkinsons’ Disease. Although both diseases affect both sexes, studies show Alzheimer’s is more prevalent in women. This is reversed when it comes to Parkinson’s Disease as men are 1.5 times more likely to develop the condition. However, women have a higher mortality rate and faster progression of the disease.

Speaking with Health Tech World, Emilia said: “In the patient’s view, they are just interacting with beautifully animated screens. However, what we are doing on the backside is where we are looking for specific patterns of behaviour because depression is associated with differences in cognitive function, psychological and behavioural patterns. Put all of those together and you get a signature for depression, Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s.”

Thymia secured €920k at the end of June 2021 from investors to help grow the company.

Moody Month

While practising good mental can be essential for every day of the month, there are times when it may be a little more difficult than others.

Pre-menstrual stress (PMS) can cause mood swings, tension, anxiety or depression. It can also cause social withdrawal and irritability. Although people with periods will recognise the start of their period, it can be tricky to know what is PMS or what may be depression or anxiety.

Moody Month, founded by Amy Thomson, helps users to receive a forecast of information on what is happening in their bodies each day. Amy was inspired to create the app after her periods stopped due to stress, travel and burn-out while working in event management in London.  She began searching for answers but was shocked to find a severe lack of information available for women. She also felt that period tracking apps stopped short at providing long term care for the entire cycle.

The app can help users to optimise their well-being by changing their mood, food and following fitness advice. It also tracks your hormonal cycle to better understand your moods and symptoms making it easier to recognise when it may be PMS. The more information input to Moody Month, the better the app is able to track and deliver information.

The best part?

The app is free unless you purchase something when using it.

Heart it out

Femtech products or solutions are often designed after founders become frustrated by a gap not addressed in women’s healthcare. When it comes to mental health start-up, Heart It Out, that’s exactly what happened.

Nithya J Rao became concerned by the lack of psychologists practising in India which led to the creation of the platform. The result was a data-driven platform that can help to train psychologists for 16 weeks before they meet a patient. It also offers therapy to address issues such as depression and anxiety.

The startup also launched a free helpline called Briefly during lockdown which aimed to provide access to a network of 27 volunteers psychologists. They went on to help more than 600 patients with trauma and anxiety.

Patients can self-refer themselves through the platform for a number of different therapies including couple, family and child services. It also offers a ‘supervision’ service where professionals can join two or more psychology professionals in a continuous, collaborative, and supportive process. It aims to facilitate the exploration, monitoring and enhancement of professional functioning.

The website states: “Heart It Out began humbly as a ‘Room on the Roof’ in a quaint neighbourhood, providing a safe space for people to talk their hearts out. Today, it is a tech platform poised to provide confidential and non-judgemental access to mental healthcare, to 1.5 billion people by 2030.”

Altopax

Altopax combines care with community by offering a virtual group therapy platform aimed at connecting mental healthcare providers with patients who need care.

Pharmaceutical and health investor Narmeen Azad created the platform to help others connect with a group of peers who are also experiencing the same mental health condition or chronic illness. Healthcare providers can also connect with other professionals to discuss personalised, integrated care.