Women’s digital group therapy platform Circe secured £100,000 from Innovate UK’s Founders Factory Biomedical Accelerator to enhance its technology and expand access to mental healthcare.
With over a million women in the UK waiting up to 18 months for mental health treatment, Circe founders Claudia Radu and Gaurav Soo are betting group therapy can improve access without sacrificing outcomes.
Research shows group therapy can be as effective as one-on-one care while reducing costs, combating loneliness, and fostering peer support. Yet to reach scale, groups require time-consuming and expensive personalized matching and programming. Streamlining the process, Circe uses AI to create cohorts based on shared life experiences and deliver custom education and progress-tracking.
Capped at 10 women, Circe’s virtual sessions cost £20 per week and are led by licensed therapists, combining grounding exercises, psychoeducation, and guided conversations. Centered on women’s top concerns, Circe offers sessions on burnout and postpartum mental health, with an ADHD program on the way. Ahead of its official launch, 92% of pilot participants reported improved mental health after one month.
“Our vision is a world in which no one goes through it alone. There is an undeniable mental health crisis in our society, and we know that delivering therapy groups at scale can help ease that burden,” said Radu. “With Circe, we hope to root mental wellbeing back into human connection.”
