She read a paper claiming an algorithm could out-pick a psychiatrist. Then she spent the next decade proving it.
New York, NY / Yale '16 / Co-Founder & CEO
A 9-year-old told her mother, "I think I'm depressed." The mother, loving but without the words for it, didn't know what to say. Two decades later that child runs Spring Health, a New York company that has decided no one should have to guess their way to the right mental health care ever again.
Spring Health sells to employers and health plans, and what it sells is a shortcut through the worst part of getting better: the trial and error. Instead of cycling a person through medications and therapists until something sticks, the platform uses machine learning to recommend a care path - self-guided exercises, coaching, therapy, psychiatry - tuned to the individual. By 2024 it served more than 23 million people across over 200 countries, with customers including Microsoft, General Mills, and Whole Foods.
The bet underneath the company is specific and a little audacious: that a model can match people to treatment more reliably than the average clinician working alone. Koh did not invent that idea. She found it, in a paper, and recognized it for what it was.
In 2016, a senior at Yale, Koh read a research paper by Adam Chekroud, then a doctoral student trained in neuroscience at Oxford. It described the first machine learning model shown to outperform the average psychiatrist at matching people to the right treatment. Her reaction was not academic. "This is it," she thought, "this could actually fix what I've seen my whole life." She and Chekroud co-founded Spring Health that year. It won Yale's Thorne Prize for Social Innovation, which came with the first seed money.
The personal history behind that recognition runs deep. Koh immigrated to the United States from South Korea at age 4. She grew up inside a stigma she has described plainly: "A lot of stigma around mental health was masked as not believing enough or not having enough faith" - filtered through Korean heritage and an Evangelical church. Her own path to care was years of "a lot of guessing, a lot of trial and error." Spring Health is, in a real sense, the system she wishes had existed for her.
The origin story tends to skip the part where it nearly didn't work. The seed round drew roughly 150 rejections. Early sales pitches were brutal in a quiet way - prospects on their phones, prospects falling asleep. "We were naive to the complexities of how health care works," she has said. The founders kept refining the model and the business until the numbers, and the buyers, came around.
Then they came around fast. A $6 million seed in 2018. A $190 million Series C in 2021 at roughly $2 billion, which at 29 made Koh the youngest woman to lead a unicorn. A round at $2.5 billion in 2023. A $100 million Series E in 2024 at $3.3 billion. In 2025 she landed on the cover of TIME as one of its rising stars.
Koh talks openly about being dismissed for her age. Her framing is less complaint than strategy: she names the bias, then keeps the receipts. The receipts are the valuation. The hardest lesson, she says, was internal. Running a company in hypergrowth while building a mental health company forced an obvious irony into the open. "Mental health and hypergrowth can actually live in harmony, but you have to be incredibly deliberate about it." Her version of the airplane safety instruction: "I had to actually put on my oxygen mask first and take care of my own mental health in order to lead effectively."
Koh gave birth to her daughter in 2023. She has said motherhood "renewed" the mission rather than competing with it. The way she puts it to her daughter doubles as the company's whole reason to exist: "One day, I really hope that you will receive excellent mental health care, and I really hope that I'm a part of building that world."
The company keeps moving. In 2026 Spring Health was named to TIME's list of the 100 Most Influential Companies and announced the acquisition of Alma, a platform for independent clinicians. The arc bends the same direction it always has: more access, fewer barriers, less guessing.
"No one was thinking about using AI to match people to the right care for them."
April Koh - on the gap she walked intoLeaves Yale to co-found Spylight, an online commerce platform; serves as Chief Product Officer.
Back at Yale, reads Adam Chekroud's paper and co-founds Spring Health. Wins the Thorne Prize for Social Innovation.
Spring Health raises $6 million in seed funding - after roughly 150 rejections.
$190M Series C at ~$2B. At 29, Koh becomes the youngest woman to lead a unicorn.
A round at $2.5B valuation. She gives birth to her daughter.
$100M Series E at a $3.3B valuation.
Featured on the cover of TIME for the TIME100 Next list of rising stars.
Spring Health named to TIME's 100 Most Influential Companies; acquires Alma.
One of the main challenges I faced as a young entrepreneur in the field was being underestimated all the time.
I did so many sales pitches where people were on their phones or falling asleep.
Mental health and hypergrowth can actually live in harmony, but you have to be incredibly deliberate about it.
I'm very proud to be one of the few women to be leading a scaled business.
Trained oboist with a Juilliard Pre-College diploma in oboe performance.
Immigrated from South Korea at age 4.
Studied both Sociology and Computer Science at Yale.
Picked up Advanced French at Columbia's Reid Hall.
Her father left a corporate energy job to start his own company - an early template.
Product manager at Shazam before she ever ran a company of her own.