Mental health gaming platform raises £780k seed funding for expansion

A London tech startup has announced that it has raised £780k in a funding round to support the launch of a new mental health platform.

Thymia, which collects and monitors user symptoms, has raised a £780k pre-seed round to scale its platform to assess for and monitor depression.

Through its online platform, Thymia aims to make mental illnesses as objectively measurable as visible physical conditions by assessing clients through online games.

This funding round was co-led by Kodori AG and Calm/Storm, with backing from Form Ventures and Entrepreneur First.

This funding will be used to gather the data needed to expand the platform, as well as to grow the startup’s technical and commercial teams.

Emilia Molimpakis, CEO and co-founder of Thymia, commented: “Thymia was born when a close friend of mine tried to take her own life.

“Her friends and doctors missed the signs that she was so seriously unwell, not least because the process of accessing the right treatment was based on out-dated methodologies not fit for the complexities and nuances of an illness like depression.

“Depression is a massive, constantly growing societal and economic problem; it is a leading cause of disability and suicides and costs the UK economy billions annually in lost productivity.

“Covid-19 has further compounded the issue, unleashing a mental illness “tsunami” due to a lack of in-person appointments, but also its harsh societal effects - social isolation, employment loss, bereavement and grief.

“From January to March 2021, the ONS found 21 per cent of UK adults reported depressive symptoms, double that observed pre-pandemic.

“Despite this, GPs and psychiatrists are using the same diagnostic questionnaires that have been around since the 1960s.

“Rating how sad you feel on a scale of 0 to 3 simply is not enough to capture the subtle nuances of early signs of depression nor track the complexities of ongoing mental illness, but our clinicians have not been given a better option.

“This means too many cases go undiagnosed or are misdiagnosed, and too many patients wait years before the right treatment is found. We want to empower clinicians and patients themselves with better tools.

“Thymia is bringing psychiatry into the 21st century, with an AI-enabled platform for accurate and continuous patient monitoring.

“It’s the first objective psychiatric assessment system, combining multiple layers of rich physiological data to assess depression and distinguish between similarly presenting disorders.

“Our technology will empower clinicians to assess and treat depression sooner, whilst allowing patients to develop a deeper understanding of their own condition.

“In time our aim is to become the gold standard of assessment for all mental health disorders and show that mental illness is as real and objectively measurable as physical illness, thereby also helping eradicate the stigma associated with it.

“We’re bringing something truly revolutionary to the market and we’re aiming to change how we treat, talk about and engage with depression as a result.

“We’re delighted that Kodori, Calm/Storm, Form and Entrepreneur First saw the potential in this vision and are joining us for the next stage in this exciting journey.”