# Grace Chang

> Grace Chang is the Taiwanese-American founder and CEO of Kintsugi, the Berkeley-based startup that built AI capable of detecting clinical depression and anxiety from just 20 seconds of free-form speech. A five-time entrepreneur with roots in signal processing and consumer tech, she raised $28 million, launched Japan's default mental health screener, and built the world's largest annotated voice dataset for mental health machine learning - before making all of Kintsugi's research and technology open source in early 2026 after FDA regulatory hurdles made the venture-backed model unsustainable.

- **Role:** Founder/CEO at Kintsugi (company transitioned to open source in 2026)
- **Organizations:** Kintsugi, UnifyID, On Deck Founders (ODF5 cohort)
- **From:** Taiwan
- **Nationality:** American (Taiwanese-American)
- **Education:** Computer Science and Economics (on scholarship), University of Southern California (USC), MBA, UCLA Anderson School of Management
- **Known for:** Raised $28M in total funding including $20M Series A from Insight Partners, Built the world's largest annotated voice dataset for mental health and machine learning (110x larger than competitors), Developed AI that detects depression and anxiety with 80%+ accuracy from 20 seconds of free-form speech

## Career timeline

- **~2000** — Attended USC on scholarship for Computer Science and Economics; one of only two women in her cohort of 230
- **Early career** — Technical leadership roles across Bay Area startups in security, enterprise, consumer, health, and fintech over three decades
- **2018** — Head of Product at UnifyID, an authentication startup using behavioral patterns; launched at TechCrunch Disrupt; runner-up Startup Battlefield; won SXSW; raised $20M Series A with 5-person team
- **2019** — Met co-founder Rima Seiilova-Olson at open AI hackathon in San Francisco; co-founded Kintsugi; received NSF Phase I grant in October 2019
- **2021** — Joined On Deck Founders ODF5 cohort during COVID-19 pandemic; referred Rima to ODF6; launched Apple App Store's first voice journaling app
- **2022-02** — Closed $20M Series A from Insight Partners (on New Year's Eve 2021), bringing total capital to $28M; investors included Acrew Capital, Darling Ventures, Citta Capital
- **2023** — Named Fierce Healthcare Fierce 15; Forbes AI 50 North America; Gartner Cool Vendor for Responsible AI; spoke at Milken Institute Future Health Summit; joined Forbes Healthcare Summit panel
- **2024** — Expanded into deepfake detection with Kintsugi Signal; spoke at FDA Digital Health Center of Excellence; HLTH 2024 speaker; launched as Japan's default mental health screener
- **2025-01** — Published peer-reviewed research in Annals of Family Medicine; named ODF Top 1% company
- **2025-03** — Named to Inc. Female Founders 500 List; achieved 5000% patient screening growth; zero customer churn across 7 new partnerships; perfect NPS of 10/10
- **2026-02** — Kintsugi ceases commercial operations and releases all AI technology and research into the public domain, citing FDA regulatory cost and timeline as unsustainable for venture-backed model

## Achievements

- Raised $28M in total funding including $20M Series A from Insight Partners
- Built the world's largest annotated voice dataset for mental health and machine learning (110x larger than competitors)
- Developed AI that detects depression and anxiety with 80%+ accuracy from 20 seconds of free-form speech
- Launched Kintsugi as Japan's default mental health screener
- Named to Inc. Female Founders 500 List (2025)
- Forbes AI 50 for North America
- Gartner Cool Vendor for Responsible AI
- Fierce Healthcare Fierce 15 (2023)
- Selected as 1 of 10 companies (from 2,600 applicants) to partner with UnitedHealth Group
- Built AI integration into clinical call center processing 20 million calls annually
- Launched Apple App Store's first voice journaling app
- Multiple NSF Phase I and II SBIR grants
- Published peer-reviewed research in Annals of Family Medicine (January 2025)
- 5000% patient screening growth in one year
- Achieved perfect NPS score of 10/10 with zero customer churn across 7 new partnerships
- Pioneered deepfake detection via voice biomarkers with Kintsugi Signal
- Released all Kintsugi research and technology to public domain in 2026

## Latest updates

- **2026-02** — Kintsugi ceases commercial operations; Grace Chang releases all AI research and technology to the public domain
- **2025-03** — Named to Inc. Female Founders 500 List; Kintsugi achieves 5000% patient screening growth
- **2025-01** — Kintsugi publishes peer-reviewed research in Annals of Family Medicine
- **2024** — Launched Kintsugi Signal for deepfake detection; Kintsugi becomes Japan's default mental health screener
- **2023** — Kintsugi named Forbes AI 50, Gartner Cool Vendor for Responsible AI, Fierce 15

## Links

- Website: https://kintsugihealth.com
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gracechang
- Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/grehce
- YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xh7GVbUg5wo
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/grehce/
- Facebook: http://facebook.com/kintsugihello

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Profile page: https://yespress.io/grace-chang
Published by YesPress — https://yespress.io
Last updated: 2026-05-14