Aiberry secures $8M to promote AI-powered mental health screening platform

A Seattle-based company announced it has secured $8 million in seed funding to promote an artificial intelligence-powered platform to assist in mental health assessments.

According to a press release from mental health screening company Aiberry, the funding effort was led by Confluence Capital Group Inc., with participation from the venture capital fund Ascension AI.

With the seed funding secured, $10 million is expected to be funneled toward adoption of the company’s platform, an AI-powered therapeutic assistant that analyzes components of a conversation — including word choice, speech patterns and changes in facial expressions — between it and a patient to detect the possibility of mental health disorders.

“Early identification and prevention have long been a challenge when it comes to mental health in the U.S.,” Aiberry co-CEO Linda Chung said in the release. “While many platforms have been developed to provide services ranging from preventive care to self-care and even clinical care, the intake process and progress monitoring has failed to advance.”

The novel AI-based platform, which is based on research by Aiberry co-founder and chief scientist Newton Howard, PhD, enables screenings to occur in a range of locations from the home, workplace, school or clinical settings, the company stated in the release. When screenings have concluded, both users and clinicians are provided with a risk level score for mental health disorders including suicidal ideation, in addition to screening insights regarding mood, concentration and energy levels.

“Our investment thesis is to apply artificial intelligence to solve practical problems in health care so that it drastically improves outcomes,” Stewart Williams, partner at Confluence Capital Group, said in the release.