Intellect CEO and Co-Founder Theodoric Chew
Singapore-based mental health startup Intellect has secured US$10 million in a Series A financing round led by US-based HOF Capital.
Other institutional backers are Headline, East Ventures, MS&AD Ventures, DG Daiwa Ventures, Insignia Ventures Partners and Pioneer Fund.
The round also saw participation from a string of angels, including Henry Chan of Shopback, Rajive Keshup of Cathay Innovation, Neel Palrecha (former VP of Engineering at Headspace), Samvit Ramadurgam of Forge, Sagi Shorrer of Peak, Anubhav Nayyar of Snap, Gaurav Girotra of Tinder, along with family office funds of billionaire founders.
Intellect will spend the capital on expanding its footprint in Asia and increasing its product, engineering, and commercial headcounts.
Besides, the company also intends to level up its product offerings to include the whole spectrum of mental health care, ranging from self-care to live counselling, coaching, to crisis management.
The round comes five months after Intellect’s US$2.2 million pre-Series A round led by Insignia Ventures Partners, alongside new investors Y Combinator and XA Network.
Also read: How to tackle employee mental health to build a resilient workforce
Launched in 2020, Intellect aims to make mental healthcare and wellbeing support accessible for everyone through its end-to-end, 24×7 mental healthcare system in a single app.
The pandemic has boosted the demand for mental health support in the last two years. According to the World Health Organisation, new depressive and anxiety disorder diagnoses spiked 400 per cent in 2021.
“Existing mental health benefits and mental healthcare systems are under-equipped to service this surging need at scale,” stated Intellect CEO and Co-Founder Theodoric Chew. “Intellect goes beyond supporting workforces, going deeper into our broader vision of building an entirely new mental healthcare system tailored specifically for Asia.”
For companies, Intellect’s mental health benefits solution includes clinically-based digital therapy programmes and telehealth services, which connect employees to a panel of professional coaches and clinical therapists within minutes.
The app’s consumer version offers an introductory mental well-being platform with self-guided skill-building lessons and bite-sized “rescue sessions” to deal with stressful emotions.
As of last August, Intellect claims to have clocked over 2.5 million users and 20 enterprise clients globally, covering 12 countries and 11 languages.
In 2021, the startup claimed to have recorded a y-o-y revenue surge by over 20 fold. It involved a significant uptick in enterprise clients signing on to its corporate mental health benefits solution — such as online ordering and food delivery platform foodpanda and digital loyalty and e-commerce platform Shopback.
Intellect also partners with insurers and global benefits brokers across Asia to offer mental health solutions on a much larger scale.
The startup has over ten clinical studies underway in collaboration with leading universities and institutions, namely the National University of Singapore (NUS), King’s College London, University of Queensland and the Singapore General Hospital.
According to Statista, the digital health industry in Singapore is estimated to increase at a 6.94 per cent annual rate (CAGR 2022-2025), resulting in a projected market volume of US$2,8 billion by 2025.
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Image Credit: Intellect
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