emotional-support
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He Built Weapons for the Navy. Then He Built a Teddy Bear That Listens.
Jacob Boyle graduated with $90 and a foam robot named MARCo. Seven years later it has talked with more than 15,000 people across 13 countries - and in a handful of cases, it called for help before things got worse.
The Coder Who Built a Best Friend for 15 Million People Because She Couldn't Afford Therapy
Andrea Campos taught herself to code to fight her own depression. The chatbot she built now fields billions of late-night messages across Latin America - and is quietly testing where an app should stop and a doctor should start.
Circles
Circles is a New York-based digital mental health company that connects people facing similar life challenges - grief, divorce, infertility, caregiving, narcissistic relationships - into small, professionally facilitated peer support groups. Founded in 2020 by Irad Eichler and Dan Landa, its mobile and web platform pairs trained therapists with groups of strangers who share a struggle, betting that being heard by people who actually understand is its own form of medicine. The company has raised $24.5M and grown to more than 160,000 members.
Irad Eichler
Irad Eichler is the founder and CEO of Circles, an app that puts people through the same life challenge - divorce, grief, infertility, caregiving - into small, professionally guided peer support groups they can join from a phone. A serial social entrepreneur who earlier built Shekulo Tov, Israel's largest organization for people with psychiatric disabilities, he was named Social Entrepreneur of the Year by the World Economic Forum. The idea for Circles came from watching his mother, in her final months with cancer, light up most not with him but with a friend who had walked the same road.