A new round of funding for Wysa, a digital platform for mental health, garnered $20 million with help from British International Investment and HealthQuad (BII). Along with other investors, the round included previous backers W Health Ventures, Kae Capital, Google Assistant Investments, and pi Ventures.

The company plans to use the funds to increase usability for a wider audience by providing multilingual support and making it simpler to use via WhatsApp, as well as to further grow into the US, UK, India, and other international markets for businesses and healthcare professionals.

Founded in 2015 by Jo Aggarwal and Ramakant Vempati, Wysa is an automated mental health support app, available both to individuals, through employer benefits programs and healthcare services. The company supports individuals with the help of an “emotionally intelligent” conversational agent which guides users via evidence-based cognitive-behavioural techniques (CBT), meditation, breathing and mindfulness exercises, as well as micro-actions to help build mental resilience skills.

For employers, Wysa offers a workplace solution that caters to the full spectrum of behavioural health needs. This solution embeds into existing company benefits, such as Employee Assistance Programs (EAP) or external health care provider networks, and can be customised by geography or cohort. Currently, Wysa claims to have facilitated over 400 million conversations with 4.5 million users in 65 countries.

“Wysa has not only been extremely successful as a consumer well-being platform but has also developed into a clinically validated, powerful tool to proactively manage mental health and well-being. Wysa meets people where they are, whether that means a little help with occasional workplace stress, right up to coping with debilitating pain, depression and anxiety. With this funding, we look forward to scaling up further and helping millions of more people,” said Ramakant Vempati, co-founder of Wysa in a statement.