Mental Support Startup Virtually Connecting People With Custom-Matched Strangers Has Raised $18M

Ten years in the past, when Jack Chou was in his early thirties he had the worst 12 months of his life.

“My LinkedIn profile regarded nice, I had all these causes to be completely happy however I used to be having an terrible time,” Chou says. “On the time I didn’t consider it as a psychological well being problem I assumed it was life, the excessive stress job, and the truth that my spouse and had been simply having first little one.”

It took some time earlier than Chou got here to simply accept it as a psychological well being problem —which to his shock, was shared by many individuals. So he determined to give up his excessive profile (and what many would take into account Bay Space dream) job and began Pace, a psychological well being startup, we match regular individuals with whole strangers to satisfy in digital emotional well being teams.

Earlier this month, Tempo introduced that it has raised $18 million, of which $15 million had been raised in a Collection A led by Tempo Capital with participation by Sequoia and BoxGroup, following a previously-unannounced $5 million seed spherical led by Sequoia Capital.

Chou says that individuals include all types of issues, often regular life conditions and and they’re matched with a facilitator who runs the group and is a licensed psychological well being clinicians of their day job.

“We convey them by know-how to speak, to have a conversations and really feel understood by people who find themselves going by one thing related,” Chou says.

When a possible member desires to hitch the Tempo, the platform asks them a few questions to grasp what they’re going by in life, after which gives an possibility choice to do a brief interview to understood extra deeply the place they’re. The preliminary dedication is to leap in for 10 weeks with one assembly per week that lasts for 90 minutes. 

Members pay $89 per 30 days and every group is often comprised of seven individuals guided by one facilitator. Teams are designed in a method that is smart for the members, akin to relying on the character of why they determined to hitch the platform.

Chou says that right this moment basically the entire income goes to the facilitators however he thinks that over time if Tempo retains getting higher they’ll have a possibility to make a margin for the corporate as nicely. 

Chou, who’s a Stanford laptop science graduate, beforehand labored at Oracle, Google, LinkedIn, and as a Head of Product at Pinterest, cofounded Tempo with Cat Lee (Tempo’s COO) whom he labored with at Pinterest, and Alex Shye (Tempo’s CTO) whom he grew up with within the Bay Space city of Los Altos.

Tempo, which is headquartered in San Francisco, at the moment employs 14 full-time staff and roughly 80 facilitators.