Seeking mental health support is a complex process, but some entrepreneurs believe that using AI to formalize techniques like congestive behavioral therapy (CBT) can help those who can’t see a professional. Dr. David Burns, who has over 40 years of experience in psychiatry, has now built the Feeling Great app based on his methods.
Burns teamed up with Jeremy Kamel, who previously led growth teams at Doordash and Reddit, to create Feeling Great, which is also the title of one of Burns’ bestselling books on mental health.
Founded in 2022, the company announced today that it has raised $8 million in seed funding, co-led by Learn Capital and TitleTownTech, with participation from Lux Ventures, WaveMaker Three-Sixty Health, Pacific Health Ventures, and Treble Capital. The startup also launched its app today, which has been in beta so far and has about 3,000 users.
Feeling Great currently has 14 employees and is looking to invest capital into app development and marketing.
Rob Hutter, founder and managing partner of Learn Capital, said he became interested in Burns' work several years ago after reading his book and attending his seminars.
Over the past few years, he reconnected with Burns and learned that he and Karmel were building a treatment solution together, and decided to invest. Hutter noted that Burns’ popularity and Karmel’s growth mindset were a good combination for scaling the app.
Apps and Technology
Burns said the company had already thought about building an app to guide lessons before large-scale language models were available on the market. But with the latest AI models coming out, the startup decided to accelerate the process of feeling better by converting Burns’ knowledge into its own model.
“I’m really excited to have developed an electronic tool that not only reduces depression, but also reduces seven negative emotions at the same time,” he told TechCrunch in a phone call.
The Feeling Great app consists of two parts: an interactive course on mental health and emotional management delivered through pictures and stories, and a chatbot that you can talk to about your problems. The latter also provides ways to practice skills that can help you deal with negative emotions.
The company said it developed its AI model based on Burns' TEAM (Test, Empathy, Resistance Assessment, Method) approach, which focuses on providing users with empathetic responses and actionable advice.
“We developed an empathy model that focuses specifically on trying to build a deep relationship and connect with the user. We also created an assessment framework that can tell us how well the AI is understanding the user,” Karmel said.
Burns said from a physiological standpoint, the app first helps you feel better and turns negative emotions into joy. It also helps you deal with difficult emotional situations when negative thoughts come back.
He added that it's often difficult to train human therapists to empathize with patients, but when you train an AI model, it does what you tell it to do.
Still, the startup says it doesn’t intend to replace human therapists with the app, and the onboarding process provides ample warnings to remind users that the app isn’t a therapist replacement. It also suggests that users dealing with suicidal thoughts should seek professional help.
Opportunities and the Way Forward
In the mental health space, there are marketplace startups like BetterHelp and Talkspace that connect users with therapists, and meditation apps like Calm and Headspace. In addition to these, Feeling Great will compete directly with Woebot, Wysa, and Sonia.
Learn Capital's Hutter said he believes it would be possible to take a proven, manualized treatment approach and use that data to create a product.
“The reason this product is relevant in today’s world is because the LLM revolution allows computational intelligence to interact with humans to unlock the psychological transformation of products,” Hutter said.
“What we care about at Learn Capital is how do we bring about a transformation that enables humans to do what they can do at scale, at scale, when they have the potential to do so.”
Both Hutter and Feeling Great’s co-founders stressed that therapy is sometimes expensive and that therapists aren’t always available. They argued that the app is always there to help you, even if you’re talking to a therapist.
Eventually, the company hopes to develop an app that works for clinical conditions and submit it for FDA approval. In 2022, Calm also began its own clinical offering.
Feeling Great is also working on bringing new features to the app, including voice-based AI, long-term memory, and an incognito mode.
Available on both Android and iOS, Feeling Great is available to US customers only at launch. It’s free for 7 days, after which it’ll cost $99 per year.
