London-based startup Syndi Health has secured $2m (£1.7m) in pre-seed funding for its digital mental health platform for employees.
Syndi Health’s platform uses artificial intelligence to recommend well-being support to employees. Syndi Health’s pre-seed attracted investment from Founders Factory, Plug and Play, the Syndicate Room Access Fund, Neo Kuma Ventures, Remus Capital and angel investors.
“We began Syndi Health knowing that we didn’t want to add more noise in the digital health market,” said Ben Lakey, co-founder and CEO, Syndi Health.
“Instead, we wanted to help healthcare organisations and insurers offer people a way to forge their own clear and safe path to digital care. As co-founders we’ve both experienced the frustration of not being given support early enough, and wanted to make fixing this problem easier.”
Syndi Health will spend the pre-seed funds on expanding its team and for software development projects.
It has also received a £400,000 Innovate UK grant and will be trialled within the NHS in Cornwall and Plymouth.
Professor Rohit Shankar MBE, clinical director at Cornwall Partnership NHS Foundation Trust, said: “We are very excited by the research and commercial potential of the Syndi Health platform. It will help us understand how better to support the mental health needs of our people and offer them the personalised digital support they need at the earliest opportunity, which is invaluable.”
Plans are currently underway to work with an undisclosed UK health charity.
Lakey and Jorge Alexander founded Syndi Health in 2020 after they struggled to receive mental health care for more than 10 months.
According to the company, it has more than 1,300 educational establishments using Syndi Health with more than 20,000 signups.
