The founders of Mental, a mental health app for men, knew they were on to something when they saw one of their features, AI interactive audio, resonate so well with users.
So the idea for a new, and hopefully safer, kind of AI therapy app was born. We called it The Path, co-founder and CEO Anson Whitmer tells TechCrunch.
Then Tony Robbins, a famous author and motivational speaker, became very enamored with the startup. He joined as a co-founder.
The Path has now raised $14.3 million in seed funding led by Prime Movers Lab (of which Robbins is a partner) with participation from speed skater Apolo Anton Ohno, boxer Deontay Wilder, and Designer Fund.
After Prime Movers invested, Robbins started talking to Whitmer and co-founder Tyler Sheaffer about small things like branding, but as his enthusiasm and ideas for the app grew, they offered to bring him on as a co-founder. Since then, the author has helped shape The Path as a therapy and coaching app that utilizes Robbins’ popular self-improvement methods.
Whitmer, who was an early employee of the meditation app Calm alongside Shafer, said her pursuit of mental health technology was born out of a tragic experience. When I was 19 years old, my beloved uncle committed suicide.
This inspired Whitmer to earn a Ph.D. in psychology, with the intention of pursuing a career in research after graduation. But when he was in college, his cousin left him a voicemail. “I didn’t realize it until it was too late. It was a cry for help, and he committed suicide,” Whitmer said.
That spurred a shift toward work that could bring scientific discoveries to the masses. The research on how meditation improves mental health is robust, so working at Calm was a natural first step. Still, after working at Calm through 2021, Whitmer felt she could do more.
“Even if it has a big impact, it’s really not a big enough impact,” he said. “The problem is that people’s problems are so specific. They’re so personal and idiosyncratic.”
Additionally, not everyone has access to individual therapy or coaching. The world lacks such therapists.
Whitmar believes LLMs and AI are the bridge to bridging that gap. “What was exciting and game-changing was knowing for the first time in my career that everyone has the potential to have the personalized access and care they need to truly get help,” he said.
In fact, something like that is already starting to happen. OpenAI says at least 900 people use ChatGPT every week for mental health-related inquiries.
But the problem with using consumer chatbots for mental health is that chatbots are “optimized for engagement,” which is the opposite of what therapy or coaching is supposed to do, Whitmer said.
Consumer chatbots not only try to solve users’ problems quickly, they also work to “enhance” ideas to keep users coming back. “But therapy and coaching don’t work that way. You’re trying to deeply understand a problem,” he said. The idea is to unearth a hypothesis and help the person find their own solution.
Whitmar said The Path’s AI is trained to “set up structures so that you can later get to where the solution is,” but from a place of understanding.
To that end, Whitmar says the startup’s specially trained AI model scored 95 on Vera-MH, a mental health safety AI benchmark. By comparison, the highest score for consumer bots is 65.
“It’s meant to challenge you. It’s not just meant to agree with you,” he says. In fact, he says, the app’s models are post-trained from open-source models, so no core consumer LLMs are used at all, meaning it’s more than just a wrapper.
The Path, which allows users to choose from 11 virtual AI therapists and customize their preferences for directness and other details, is now free due to its growing user base. Ultimately, the startup plans to charge $40 per month.
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