542 dead mental health startups: who pays predicts survival, not the founding team
Dataset: Dead mental health startups, 2000-2026, coded on 18 fields
A dataset of 542 digital mental health companies that died between 2000 and 2026, coded on 18 fields including business model, payer, funding, and reason for exit. Analysis reveals a stark pattern: companies relying on consumer payments died at 53%, while those with institutional payers (employers, insurers, clinics) died at only 21%. A medical co-founder made no difference to exit rates (47% vs. 47%). The classification is LLM-assisted, with full rationale provided for transparency.
Who pays predicts survival far better than anything on the founding team.
- jabiko
Starting at page 20, the report looks like someone let AI create a HTML page and then just converted it to PDF. There are misplaced "Calendar", "Money Bag" and "Globe" emojis floating above the title of each startup analysis.
I suspect that nobody, including the authors, ever read this 391 page report.
- palmotea
Does this include the several stupid "thin wrapper on ChatGPT to 'help' people with depression/ADHD/etc." startups that I recall from about two seconds after ChatGPT came out?
Basically: "I want to be a founder, I have no expertise and a superficial understanding of the domain but I've got some tech, so here's a non-solution I'm selling as 'the best thing ever for you.'"
- w10-1
Post-mortem's are very useful, though often not welcome.
I appreciate the top-line summary and the approach looks promising, but I don't have time to sort through the data or details.
Both are likely common, so don't be disheartened by complaints :)