GOOGLE-BACKED WYSA BRINGS A FRESH RAY OF HOPE TO DESTRESS THE EXCESSIVE ANXIETY AND TRAUMA CAUSED DUE TO THE PANDEMIC WITH AN UPCOMING FUNDRAISER

Until quite a few years ago, Mental Health Issues had been stigmatized excessively in our society. But as we progressed, issues relating to mental health and negative feelings building up started being recognized and spoken about. Although, talking about these mental health issues have become more acceptable, it still remains disgraceful to talk about. A few of the mental health issues that have been identified are anxiety disorders, depression, obsessive-compulsive disorders, grief, sleep issues, paranoia, and post-traumatic stress disorder. With the world grappling with the Covid-19 pandemic and dealing with new realities of social distancing, remote working, temporary unemployment, and homeschooling, have affected mental stability and caused fear, stress, and anxiety. Sometimes talking about these issues seems like a difficult task, but bottling up does not do any good. Having someone listen to you without any judgement or prejudice is a prerogative to anyone who is at a low point in their lives.

Wysa, an artificial intelligence based conversational assistant founded in 2015 by Jo Aggarwal and Ramakant Vempati as a Bangalore-based startup is a safe space for every individual and use case catered to through this platform. Using cognitive-behavioral techniques backed by science and handpicked by therapists to help build mental resilience, every conversation with Wysa is based on techniques published in peer-reviewed clinical research.

Wysa the Penguin is an AI-enabled mental health chatbot therapist which keeps your conversations private and anonymous which allows you to talk about your feelings, guides you through mindfulness meditation, leads you through exercises and other self-help tools. Running on a freemium model with a quarterly subscription at Rs. 8,999, monthly subscription at Rs. 4,999, and weekly subscription at Rs. 1,499, the app provides tools such as chatbot, sleep stories, exercises, therapists, and advanced sessions. With use, the app builds a personalised tool kit to cope with stress, depression, anxiety, sleep issues, anger and grief and creates a journal. A friendly user interface allows users an empathetic listen with sane replies and having partnered with corporates, healthcare, government agencies, and individuals, has conducted over 100 million conversations so far.

Wysa has raised a total of $ 3.9 million over four rounds till December, 2020, and is looking to raise Rs. 34.2 Crores from various marquee investors such as W Health Global, pi Ventures, Kae Capital, Beeline Impex, Shangrila Infotech and Kateel Software. Backed by Google Assistant through an investment in March, 2021, Wysa is now powered by the intelligent and adaptive google assistant which intends to take the startup to become India’s global leader in the mental health field. Having benefited over 1.2 million people across 30 countries, Wysa has been chosen as the best app to deal with COVID-19 stress and anxiety by the world’s leading health app evaluation and adviser organisation, ORCHA. 

In these times of stress and anxiety, with the pandemic wrecking our lives and the tragic news of deaths all around, Wysa makes you feel heard and helps build mental resilience through its tailored technology. Explore the app which is available on Play Store and iOS.