Korean startup Atomers which operates the leading mental health platform Mind Café has attracted more than 20 billion won or about $16 million in Series B investment, which is one of the largest investments in any domestic mental health care company. It is noteworthy that Atomers got three times more investment than targeted within two months of having sought Series B investment. The investment round has existing investors Insight Equity Partners and GC Green Cross Holdings, and new investors Hashed, E&Investment, K2 Investment, and Samsung Next.
Atomers has been leading the popularization of domestic mental health services by providing an anonymous mental health community as well as non-face-to-face professional psychological counseling through Mind Cafe. Atomers’ mental health platform has been able to secure 1 million members. Mind Café has firmly established itself as South Korea’s largest mental health platform in all areas such as the number of users and experts, monthly active users (MAU), the average length of stay, and sales. In the past two years, sales have grown by an average of 400% annually, and sales in the first half of last year increased by more than 1,000% compared to the previous year.
Atomers also saw remarkable results in the B2B and B2G markets. Mind Café’s employee mental health management program (EAP: Employee Assistance Program ), which is provided to companies, has secured major institutions such as Naver, NHN, Shinhan Investment Corp., Neowiz, and the Seoul Metropolitan Government as clients. Currently, the number of employees of customer companies who use the program is about 200,000.
Atomers to invest in R&D & expansion
The global mental health market is growing explosively with the outbreak of COVID- 19. In 2020, US Mental Health startup funding exceeded $ 1.5 billion ( about 2 trillion won ), and there are more than 10 mental health startups that have grown into unicorns from 2020 to 2021 after the coronavirus. In particular, Korea consistently ranks first in the OECD suicide rate, and among them, psychological problems such as depression account for the biggest cause.
Investors paid particular attention to Mind Cafe’s rapid growth potential and expandability into the biotech sector, specifically successful development of digital therapeutics for mental disorders, business advancement through development of AI algorithms, mental health community through user and database, secure sales, and EAP market share growth, industry great team, and Cooperation. Through this investment, Atomers plans to focus on securing large-scale talent for expansion of the mental health care technology R&D and overseas expansion.
Atomers CEO Kim Gyu -tae said, “This investment attraction will serve as an opportunity to more actively realize Mind Cafe’s vision of healing people’s hearts through technology. Together, we will increase access to mental health services and build a smart mental care ecosystem.” Hashed CEO Seojun Kim said, “Mind Cafe is an impressive example of leading the domestic digital mental health care market based on community.”
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