Korean mental healthcare platform Mind Café enters Japan market to tap ‘mindfulness’ needs

Korean startup Atomers, which operates Korea’s No. 1 mental care platform ‘Mind Café’ with 1.5 million members, announced it had launched its first global service for Japanese users. The ‘anonymous mental health community/non-face-to-face service had launched a beta service earlier for three months. An average of about 100 consultation posts per day were uploaded, and its potential was evaluated.

According to a study by Waseda University in Japan, the concept of ‘mindfulness,’ which places great emphasis on the health and value of the mind and heart, is receiving significant attention in Japanese society. The market, worth 45 billion yen in 2020, will reach 250 billion yen in 2023, per the survey. In the same study, excluding the 2 million people who answered that they do ‘mindfulness’ once a month, the number of people who expressed interest in ‘mindfulness’ reached 9 million. Atomers wants to tap the potential of interest in the ‘mindfulness’ concept and address psychological difficulties that Japanese people have recently faced.

“The demand for cultural anonymity and unmet needs for psychological counseling has become a major reason for entering Japan in earnest,” Kim Gyu-tae, CEO of Atomus, said. “Through the know-how of building a smartphone-based non-face-to-face psychological counseling platform in Korea over the past few years, we concluded that we can provide a service that appeals to high-ranking Japanese people. We are confident that our technology, which combines scientific methodology based on Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) and practicality of advanced information and communication technology (ICT), will achieve meaningful results in Japan,” he added.

Meanwhile, ‘Mind Café’ is showing results as the number one mental health platform in Korea regarding the number of users and experts, sales, cumulative investment, and corporate value. Atomers Co., Ltd has successfully attracted 20 billion won in Series B, the largest single investment. Last May, it was also selected as an ‘innovation icon’ company that supports growth as a next-generation unicorn company from Korea Credit Guarantee Fund with innovative technology and a creative business model.