Meta announced a $3 million seed investment in an Asian mental health startup.
Meta's (Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp) first investment in Asia was in mental health, through seed funding for startup Ami. The Indonesian- and Singapore-based app raised a $3 million seed round just four months after launch. In this way, it will be part of Meta's New Product Experimentation (NPE), the technology company's experimental apps division.
Ami is a platform that seeks to bring mental health services to company workers in Asia, through mental health management sessions on WhatsApp. “We are impressed by the passion and talent of the Ami team and look forward to supporting them as they build WhatsApp to give people in Asia another way to support their mental health,” said NPE Director Sunita Parasuraman.
Through Ami, users can access specialists in areas such as stress management or depression. However, one of Ami's first actions has been to partner with academic institutions in the region to offer comprehensive psychological care. Since currently their specialists are simply mental health counselors, they seek to specialize their service.
The platform seeks to break stigmas about access to mental health services in Asian countries, especially in Singapore. “What we hope to do is make the mental health narrative much more proactive for people who want to adopt a healthier lifestyle,” explained Justin Kim, co-founder of Ami.
Ami's ultimate goal is to achieve the well-being of workers without the need to use other types of ineffective solutions that do not perceive mental health as a problem.
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https://www.medtechpulse.com/article/insight/meta-takes-first-step-into-the-mental-health-market
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