A Bristol business has raised £50,000 in investments from the Capital Pilot Boost Fund to grow its SaaS workplace wellbeing platform that simplifies access to personalised mental health support.

Paranimo’s Personalised Matched Support system matches employees to the right counsellor, psychotherapist or hypnotherapist for them based on relevance, personality fit and availability.

“I asked myself, with mental health being so personal, why do organisations choose to offer such generic support?” says Matthew Vamplew, Co-Founder of Paranimo, which translates to ‘match mind’ in Latin.

“Research shows that the better the therapeutic match with your counsellor or psychotherapist, the better the mental health outcome.”

“Workplace solutions such as Employee Assistance Programs (EAPs), which provide generic therapeutic support via helplines, are not part of the solution. They are reactive and push employees through a triage process that forces them to justify why they need help, only to be given the next available counsellor.

“This ‘bad matching’ leads to prolonged ill health, lower productivity, and higher risk of staff absence.”

With 37% of all sick days being stress related, giving employees easy access to personalised mental health care is critical to lowing costs and building a psychologically healthy culture.

“EAPs also incentivise you not to use them as they work on a “assumed usage model” (think energy meter). My advice for HR and People Managers is to choose a mental health care provider that wants you to use them!”

Paranimo’s £50,000 investment from the Capital Pilot Boost Fund will be used to challenge these existing workplace mental health solutions. Organisations will be empowered to take greater responsibility for their staff’s mental health with a cost-effective, radically different alternative that helps people feel better faster.

The company’s latest funding round brings total investments to date to £297,000, which includes equity investments and Innovate UK grant funding. 

“We wouldn’t be where we are today without that funding and the guidance we had from Innovate UK EDGE on our grant funding strategy,” says Matthew.

With support from Innovate UK EDGE Funding Specialist, Dr Ben Masheder, Paranimo was able to raise £150,000 over two successful funding applications.

The company has used the funds to hire two new members of staff who will help Paranimo to realise the huge market potential of its product. Mental health challenges cost the UK economy nearly £118bn annually and Paranimo hopes its targeted approach will bring employees back to wellbeing and productivity faster.

Innovate UK EDGE will continue to support as this Bristol business redefines workplace mental health support.