Healthtech startup secures £2m to expand ‘video game-inspired’ mental health AI

Thymia, a London based healthtech startup building gamified AI tools to revolutionise how we assess and monitor mental health, has today announced a $2.7m (approx. £2m) seed round to expand the reach and capabilities of its “pioneering” technology.

The round was led by Kodori Ventures and joined by new and existing investors including Entrepreneur First, Syndicate Room’s Access, Calm/Storm and Form Ventures. Angels include Amanda M Cardinale and Nadav Rosenberg. Thymia is also enabling individuals to join the round through a Crowdcube community fundraise.

Neuroscientist Dr Emilia Molimpakis was inspired to start thymia following her best friend’s struggle with depression whilst at university. Doctors and a psychiatrist failed to spot the severity of her condition. The experience inspired Emilia to build better tools to “revolutionise” the way we assess and monitor mental health.

Currently, doctors use subjective questionnaires and observation to assess cognition. But the system is highly subjective and doesn’t enable clinicians to monitor symptom changes in between appointments.

To make mental health assessments more objective and empirical, thymia has created AI-powered video games to analyse millions of biomarkers, including patients’ voices, facial expressions, movement and behaviour, and accurately identify symptoms of mental health conditions more easily.

Currently, thymia presents up to 84 per cent accuracy in detecting clinical depression and anxiety. The technology has been designed to dramatically reduce the time to diagnosis for mental health problems like depression, with the aim of helping clinicians identify the right intervention sooner and providing insights into patients’ condition between appointments.

Currently, the technology can detect clinical symptoms of depression and anxiety, as well as non-clinical indicators of mental wellness including exhaustion, stress, levels of self-esteem and agitation.

Dr Emilia Molimpakis, co-founder and CEO at thymia, said: “By combining cutting edge neuroscience and ethical, explainable AI, we have built a tool that can help people get an accurate diagnosis and effective treatment plan in place faster than ever before. It’s all about arming clinicians with the very best tools so that they can do the very best by their patients.

“We’re so grateful for the support our investors have shown us so far; and we look forward to this next stage of our journey as we look to optimise and expand our technology and get it in the hands of the people who need it most.”

By Matthew Neville – Senior Correspondent, Bdaily

• Add me on LinkedIn and Twitter to keep up to date
• And follow Bdaily on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn
• Submit press releases to editor@bdaily.co.uk for consideration.

Looking to promote your product/service to SME businesses in your region? Find out how Bdaily can help →