With the COVID-19 pandemic, people's emotional health and well-being have been affected. At a time when the demand for online support has been growing, the Zenklub platform announced a seed investment round in the amount of 2.6 million euros, led by Indico Capital. It is now intended to increase the number of people with access to emotional health care in this exceptional period, an amount that will be divided between the startup units in Portugal and Brazil.
"Find psychologists online and start taking care of your emotional health today": this is the proposal that appears on the website, whose objective is to contribute to personal development. Through Self-Knowledge Days, for example, the platform provides online therapy sessions with specialists such as psychologists and psychoanalysts.
In a statement, Rui Brando, a doctor and CEO of the company, considers that the global public health crisis has "drastically changed the routines of all of us, which generates anxiety, depression, panic syndrome and other psychosomatic diseases". In this sense, he guarantees that "the search for emotional health solutions has been growing and with the onset of the crisis the online solution has become evident".
J Stephan Morais, Indico's managing partner, considers that "the now perfect time for Zenklub", since "the needs of this type of online service were already great, but now they are obvious". "We are committed to continuing to support the Zenklub team in expanding also in Portugal and later to other countries", he guarantees.
With this investment round, the startup intends to consolidate itself as a leader in the online market for emotional health in both countries. To this end, the focus is not only on tools and technology, but also on content. In Portugal, the focus of the investment will be on the final consumer and on expanding the technology team based in Lisbon. In Brazil, the intention is mainly to expand the company in the corporate segment.
Indico's investment follows the previous round at Zenklub held in 2019 by the Portuguese fund. This year, in addition to Indico Capital, the round was attended by the Spanish All Iron fund, the SME Investimentos 200M financing line and several Brazilian executives from the health and insurance industries.
