# Earkick

AI Mental Health Companion for GenZ

- Canonical URL: https://wefunder.com/earkick
- Entity ID: wefunder:company:145510
- Last updated: 2026-06-08T05:01:32Z
- Generated at: 2026-06-08T11:31:12Z

## Quick facts
- 4.8 star rating and 40,000+ users
- 34% mood improvement, 32% anxiety reduction in our members
- CEO with multiple exits, investors and advisors from LDV Capital, SpaceX, and other top-tier firms
- 1 in 2 youth (13-18 y.o.) impacted by mental health--huge problem that needs solving
- Top AI technology to measure mental health within 3 seconds and respond in real time
- $1.5M raised from top tier VCs
- International patent

## Active fundraises
- wefunder:fundraise:100891: 4(a)(6) successful (USD)
- wefunder:fundraise:100890: 4(a)(6) successful (USD)

## Story
GenZ is the generation most affected by mental health problems and the least satisfied with existing support.The world's youth is in crisis and needs mental health support NOW.Current solutions don't work for them.GenZ wants immediate support that gives them agency and meets them where they are.The future of mental health is hyper-personalized, AI-powered, and radically private.Earkick's Panda is the companion GenZ loves, trusts, and learns from 24/7/365.The substantive costs and suffering of mental health conditions are driven by not intervening in an adequate or timely manner.GenZ experiences a huge delay between the time of symptom onset and treatment. Measurement -if at all - only happens during therapy and is highly biased.Only real-time measurement enables real-time support. Earkick provides both.GenZ does things on the phone and on the goWith Earkick, all it takes to assess your mental state is a check-in via voice, text, or video. The results are auto-filled in your journal. Based on that data, the Earkick Panda will then generate a message that provides encouragement and science-based guidance.“This morning, my wellness coach reminded me to savor each exciting moment in my day but to always take time to rest and recharge. It’s good advice—good enough that I would believe it came from a human,” wrote Jamie Ducharme in TIME Magazine.Unlike solutions that only measure but don't give you actionable, personalized suggestions and unlike chatbots that only chat without actually knowing or remembering you,Earkick's proprietary tech combines the best of both worlds into an AI-powered platform.We trained multi-modal mental sentiment and emotion recognition to recognize mental health states for depression and anxiety and a large language model (LLM) to "talk" to our members, providing actionable advice on various levels. Our platform can also deduct PHQ-9 and GAD-7 from the data collected.It empowers you to measure what you want to manage while paving your way to success with science-based guidance, generated exclusively for you.Members experience a 34% improvement in mood and a 32% reduction in anxietyOur data has shown a direct and compelling correlation between continuous, effortless mental health check-ins and improvements in mood and reduced anxiety. State-of-the-art prediction accuracy instead of guessworkEarkick’s secret sauce is the AI-driven prediction accuracy that has steadily climbed since our ML/AI team started building the tech. In order to assess the quality of our prediction algorithm, we measure the F1 score of our automatic prediction compared to a test data set with known mood and anxiety. The F1 score has been improving over time with a clear upward trend.Month "0" represents November 2023. Forward-looking projections cannot be guaranteed.

## FAQ
1. **I have a question regarding the valuation. What exactly does the $11M valuation cap mean?**
   - Thanks for this question, we're happy to answer it! A $11M post-money valuation cap in the context of startup funding typically refers to the maximum valuation at which investors are willing to convert their investment into equity during a future financing round or exit event. Let's break down the components of this term: 1. Valuation Cap: This is the maximum valuation at which the investment will convert into equity when certain triggering events occur. In simpler terms, it acts as a cap to ...
2. **How does the panda “remember” the user? Can you give an example?**
   - Great question. With each check-in and every conversation, the Earkick Panda assesses the mental health state of the member and can extract contextual information. This information as a whole then forms Panda’s memory. For example, when you tell Panda that you had a bad day due to work, it will proactively ask you next time you interact with the app how your day at work was and whether you need any support. This not only makes conversations more seamless but also avoids having you repeat your...
3. **Interesting concept! I was wondering whether other companies could copy your technology? Or how do you stay unique?**
   - Thanks Nadine, very good question. Our USP is to combine real-time measurements of mental health with in-the-moment support using unique technology. The uniqueness comes from both good-quality data and top-notch engineering. Our system is designed in a modular way, which allows us to replace certain modules with new state-of-the-art technologies. Having said that, it's extremely challenging for others to copy us. Our measurement technology alone is more than 3x faster and more accurate than o...
4. **Can you discuss revenue data? ARR, 2023, projected 2024?**
   - Thanks for your question Adam. We follow a strict startup playbook that already worked out in my previous companies and in the companies I advise. It's based on the book Lean Analytics by by Alistair Croll and Benjamin Yoskovitz. It suggests to startups due to their limited resources to focus on one metric at the time and then switch to the next one. In the past we focused on product market fit, then on retention. Both are now in the green. Our current focus is organic user growth and we're m...
5. **Hi, Herbert, I think this is a great concept. May I ask what data and training model (generally speaking) your team have used to develop Panda? would it be possible to share some background of the your tech team behind panda if you do not mind. And what's panda's advantage ove...**
   - Thanks Nick for this valuable question. We have trained our tech on over 10Bn real-life data points and we could validate that our approach is improving our members' mental health by over 30% in 160 days. We tested against Open AI and other Large Language Models and have received best grades. Our solution is not only the chatbot, but it's complemented by insightful statistics, a habit tracker, breathing and meditation sessions, important insights, weekly summaries, a music mixer for sleep etc...

## Team
- Herbert Bay (CEO & Co-Founder)
- Karin A. Stephan (COO & Co-Founder)
- Gagan Narula (VP Machine Learning)
- João Palotti (VP of Data Science)
- Nataliia Kozlovska (Head of Mobile)
- Marek Dajnowski (Software Architect)
- Igor Makara (Senior Mobile Engineer)
- Dariia Denysenko (QA Engineer)

## Q&A
- Q: I have a question regarding the valuation. What exactly does the $11M valuation cap mean?
  - A: Thanks for this question, we're happy to answer it! A $11M post-money valuation cap in the context of startup funding typically refers to the maximum valuation at which investors are willing to convert their investment into equity during a future financing round or exit event. Let's break down the components of this term: 1. Valuation Cap: This is the maximum valuation at which the investment will convert into equity when certain triggering events occur. In simpler terms, it acts as a cap to ensure that early investors are rewarded for taking a risk in the early stages of the startup. 2. Post-Money Valuation: This refers to the estimated total value of the startup after external financing is added. It includes the investment amount in addition to the existing valuation of the company. So, if you have a $11M post-money valuation cap, it means that when the startup undergoes a future financing round or exits, the investment made by the investors will convert into equity at a valuation no higher than $11 million. Here's a brief example to illustrate: - Suppose a startup raises $5 million with an $11M post-money valuation cap. - If the next financing round values the company at $15 million pre-money, this means before the new investment is on the startup’s bank account, then the post-money valuation is $20 million ($15 million pre-money valuation + $5 million investment), the early investors will convert their investment at the capped valuation of $11 million. - Therefore, the early investors would receive equity as if the company were valued at $11 million rather than the higher valuation of $20 million. This mechanism protects early investors from excessive dilution if the startup achieves a high valuation in subsequent funding rounds. It allows them to benefit from the company's growth while ensuring that their initial investment is recognized at a reasonable valuation. Keep in mind that the details of such terms can vary, and it's important to carefully review the terms of any investment agreement for specific conditions and nuances.
- Q: Could you tell me who is the market leader in this space already? Also, it sounds as though you have had successful exits int he past, may I ask how much of the company you currently own/your stake?
  - A: Thanks Mike for your question. The market leader currently is Wysa and the market is still small but growing quickly. We have faster and more advanced tech than Wysa and measure mental health in real time. The founders' stake in the company is 70% together (35% each). We are aware and willing to get diluted in order to bring Earkick to a success.
- Q: Can you provide more context on your patent(s) and IP portfolio? What's the value? How defensible is it?
  - A: Thanks Nicolas, this is a good question. As of the value of our patents and IP portfolio, this is very difficult to answer and I cannot come up with a specific number here. Our IP consists of an international patent for the overall approach of measuring mental health using biomarkers. It was filed quite early so that it's defensible and very specific on the use case. Also, our algorithm are trade secret and we have a trade mark on our brand Earkick as well as multiple copyrights of designs, etc. The value of all this depends on how "famous" our brand becomes and how much revenue is generated with our IP. Sorry for not being more specific on this. As for the defensibility. We believe that our patent is highly defensible as I stated below, it was filed quite early already and encompasses a lot of things that were not covered at the time.
- Q: Can you provide more context on your patent(s) and IP portfolio? What's the value? How defensible is it?
  - A: Sorry for the late reply. We have an international patent application pending. We only submit defendable patents. The rest is trade secret (algorithms) or copy right protected (visuals, content, etc.). The value is huge in these times and the times coming. An exact value, however, is difficult to nail down.
- Q: Hi, Herbert, I think this is a great concept. May I ask what data and training model (generally speaking) your team have used to develop Panda? would it be possible to share some background of the your tech team behind panda if you do not mind. And what's panda's advantage over chatgpt? Can people just simply use chatgpt for companionship?
  - A: Thanks Nick for this valuable question. We have trained our tech on over 10Bn real-life data points and we could validate that our approach is improving our members' mental health by over 30% in 160 days. We tested against Open AI and other Large Language Models and have received best grades. Our solution is not only the chatbot, but it's complemented by insightful statistics, a habit tracker, breathing and meditation sessions, important insights, weekly summaries, a music mixer for sleep etc. Also, the app measures data such as sleep, exercises, weather, etc. and can come up with correlations with your mental health. This is impossible with solutions like ChatGPT. Basically everything in one great app.
- Q: Can you discuss revenue data? ARR, 2023, projected 2024?
  - A: Thanks for your question Adam. We follow a strict startup playbook that already worked out in my previous companies and in the companies I advise. It's based on the book Lean Analytics by by Alistair Croll and Benjamin Yoskovitz. It suggests to startups due to their limited resources to focus on one metric at the time and then switch to the next one. In the past we focused on product market fit, then on retention. Both are now in the green. Our current focus is organic user growth and we're making great progress here. Once we can place a check mark behind this number, we will focus on revenue. This said, we're currently producing around $12k ARR growing. Our projections for 2024 is to break the $250k mark. By the end of 2024, we will be focusing on revenue and therefore it will grow from there at a fast pace towards $1M ARR. Happy to discuss further.
- Q: Interesting concept! I was wondering whether other companies could copy your technology? Or how do you stay unique?
  - A: Thanks Nadine, very good question. Our USP is to combine real-time measurements of mental health with in-the-moment support using unique technology. The uniqueness comes from both good-quality data and top-notch engineering. Our system is designed in a modular way, which allows us to replace certain modules with new state-of-the-art technologies. Having said that, it's extremely challenging for others to copy us. Our measurement technology alone is more than 3x faster and more accurate than other measurement technologies on the market.
- Q: How does the panda “remember” the user? Can you give an example?
  - A: Great question. With each check-in and every conversation, the Earkick Panda assesses the mental health state of the member and can extract contextual information. This information as a whole then forms Panda’s memory. For example, when you tell Panda that you had a bad day due to work, it will proactively ask you next time you interact with the app how your day at work was and whether you need any support. This not only makes conversations more seamless but also avoids having you repeat your story over and over again.