Czech startup Elin.ai, targeted on utilizing AI to guard youngsters and younger adults on social media and improve their digital well-being, has raised €1M in a pre-seed funding spherical.
€420K of this funding quantity got here from JSK Investments, led by Czech entrepreneur and investor Simona Kijonkova.
A strategic funding
JSK Investments helps Elin.ai with monetary backing and strategic connections to key companions, aiming to speed up development and worldwide growth.
Becoming a member of Presto Ventures and BD Companions, who invested earlier in 2024, JSK’s involvement closes the €1M pre-seed funding spherical.
Elin.ai has already attracted over 2,000 customers with robust weekly retention and goals to succeed in 5,000 energetic customers by year-end. Its MVP model of the app launched in October on Android and iOS.
The startup plans to develop into overseas markets and develop AI fashions addressing points like consuming problems, nervousness, and conspiracy theories.
Simona Kijonkova, says, “The psychological well being of younger individuals is in a state of disaster. Research present that as much as 40 per cent of European youngsters undergo from despair or nervousness linked to the influence of social media, with devastating results on their psychological wellbeing and growth.”
“On the identical time, entry to therapeutic and psychiatric care is severely restricted in lots of international locations, together with the Czech Republic. Alarmingly, for the primary time in historical past, the suicide charges are increased amongst younger individuals than amongst middle-aged adults, underscoring the pressing want to deal with this concern.”
“That’s why I see Elin.ai as an important mission. By leveraging synthetic intelligence, the platform affords an accessible answer, offering not solely quick and personalised assist but in addition prevention and long-term care – areas we can not overlook,” provides Kijonkova.
Kijonkova based Zasilkovna in 2010, rising it into the Packeta Group, a tech and logistics firm working in seven European international locations. In 2024, she offered Packeta in a landmark post-Soviet enterprise exit. By way of her funding firm, JSK, Kijonkova now focuses on supporting socially impactful initiatives with world market potential.
Capital utilisation
The funds will assist the event of Elin.ai’s cellular app, geared toward bettering the psychological well being of Technology Z.
Jan Romportl, CEO and co-founder of Elin.ai, says, “Our mission is to assist younger individuals deal with quick stress and foster long-term constructive psychological well being within the digital media atmosphere.”
“The funding from JSK permits us to develop the app to worldwide markets and improve our AI fashions to deal with a broader vary of psychological well being challenges confronted by Gen Z.”
Enhancing psychological well being
A McKinsey Well being Institute research exhibits that 20 per cent of Europe’s Gen Z price their psychological well being as poor or very poor, whereas the Nationwide Institute of Psychological Well being reviews that 40 per cent of ninth graders face despair and 30 per cent expertise nervousness, highlighting the necessity for psychological well-being initiatives.
That is the place Elin.ai appears to be like to make a distinction.
Elin.ai is a cellular app designed as a “cognitive antivirus” to assist younger individuals handle challenges like social media pressures, cyberbullying, and comparability. It analyses machine screenshots and affords personalised recommendation and instruments to deal with nervousness, stress, and detrimental ideas.
The corporate companions with psychiatrists to create AI fashions that provide 24/7 individualised assist for points like despair, nervousness, loneliness, and consuming problems. The app focuses on prevention, disaster administration, and long-term well-being by way of a chat-based interface.
Professor Jiri Horacek, psychiatrist, neuroscientist, and co-founder of Elin.ai, says, “Behind each particular person scuffling with psychological well being points lies a broader societal problem. Folks with psychological well being problems usually expertise emotions of helplessness and frustration, which may result in radicalisation, extremist views, or susceptibility to conspiracy theories.”
“Supporting psychological well being is essential to particular person wellbeing and for bettering the general societal local weather.”
Transient about JSK Investments
JSK Investments, based in 2017 by Simona and Jaromír Kijonka, focuses on direct fairness investments in Czech and European firms, emphasising development by way of entrepreneurial expertise. The group prioritises investments with constructive societal influence.
JSK’s portfolio consists of firms like Alensa, a European retailer of contact lenses, and beforehand Packeta, a logistics-tech firm that achieved worldwide success earlier than its 2024 exit.
