Daniel Cahn (left) and Neil Parikh (right), cofounders of Slingshot AI.<\/p>\n
courtesy of slingshot<\/p>\n
Neil Parikh\u2019s first startup Casper made sleep easy\u2014and even cool. The med school dropout used tech to help people buy mattresses with just a few clicks. Now he wants to make getting therapy just as simple.<\/p>\n
After turning the sleep brand into a billion-dollar business, the Forbes Under 30 alum is back with a new venture: Slingshot AI, a startup building a chatbot designed to replicate the experience of talking to a therapist.<\/p>\n
\u201cI never really thought about therapy,\u201d Parikh told Forbes. \u201cThen I found a therapist who changed my life.\u201d That\u2019s how it clicked for the entrepreneur. While millions struggle with mental health issues, access to care is staggeringly limited. \u201cWe realized there\u2019s over 10,000 people who want care for every therapist that\u2019s out there,\u201d he said. \u201cThere was an opportunity for AI to actually help people in a new way.\u201d<\/p>\n
On Tuesday, Slingshot officially launched its AI-powered therapy bot, called Ash, and announced a follow-on Series A round co-led by Radical Ventures and Forerunner Ventures, with participation from existing investors Andreessen Horowitz, Menlo Ventures and others. The round brings Slingshot\u2019s total funding to $93 million as it emerges from beta after being tested with more than 50,000 users.<\/p>\n
Parikh founded the startup with Daniel Cahn, a machine learning engineer who previously worked on AI tools for mental health in the UK. Unlike general purpose models like ChatGPT\u2014which pull data from the internet\u2014Ash was developed in collaboration with clinicians and trained specifically on behavioral health data. It doesn\u2019t offer advice or try to diagnose, but is instead designed to guide users more through self-reflection, similar to how a therapist might prompt deeper thinking.<\/p>\n
Andreessen Horowitz\u2019s a16z was quick to back the entrepreneur. Daisy Wolf, partner at the firm, said they\u2019d been actively looking for a startup bringing AI into the mental health space, handing Slingshot a term sheet as soon as the team was ready to raise. \u201cThey have the experience and know how to pull this off. They’ve been absolute magnets for talent, and the caliber of people they’ve been able to recruit has continued to blow us away,\u201d Wolf said.<\/p>\n
Parikh was 22 when he dropped out of medical school to build Casper. The company wasn\u2019t the first to sell mattresses online, but it was the first to become a household name with mattress-in-a-box convenience and a wellness-focused message that turned sleep into a lifestyle. Celebrity endorsements and subway ads helped build the brand amongst a younger audience. Parikh went all in and even co-authored a book on sleep.<\/p>\n
Casper went public in 2020 at $12 a share\u2014below its target range\u2014and returned to private ownership two years later. He stepped down in 2021 and fully exited the board after the sale. Since then, he\u2019s invested in more than 150 startups, many tied to mental health.<\/p>\n
Now back in the founder seat, he says building from the ground up is both daunting and exciting. \u201cEvery part of this business is really challenging when you think about it. You have to build a large scale data set through partnerships. You have to build a team that knows how to train AI models. You actually have to learn how to train the models,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The burning question: Can a chatbot really compare to a human therapist?<\/p>\n