loneliness
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The Toy Guys Who Sold 750,000 Robot Cats to Fight Loneliness
A former Hasbro team took a $60-to-$180 robotic cat, aimed it at grandparents instead of grandkids, and turned play into a public-health tool. State agencies now hand the pets out by the thousands.
Andromeda Robotics
Andromeda Robotics is a Melbourne-founded, San Francisco-based robotics company building Abi, a colourful humanoid companion robot designed to reduce loneliness in aged care and assisted living. Abi holds conversations in more than 90 languages, remembers residents across visits, and runs group activities, working alongside care teams rather than replacing them. Founded in 2022 by Grace Brown, the company deploys Abi to care homes on a subscription basis and raised a $23M Series A in September 2025 led by Forerunner.
Cobu
Cobu is a Boston-based proptech company that turns apartment residents into a real community - and turns that community into occupancy. Its resident-powered, AI-enabled platform runs building-wide chats, interest groups, in-person events, and always-on Google review and referral outreach, backed by a team of virtual community managers. For renters it fights isolation; for owners and operators it drives signed leases, higher renewals, better online reputation, and less busywork for on-site teams. Founded in 2018 as Doorbell, Cobu is used across dozens of U.S. states and by many of the country's largest multifamily operators.
Meeno
Meeno is an AI-powered relationship mentor founded by former Tinder CEO Renate Nyborg. Built on large language models with input from clinicians and relationship experts, the app gives people private, non-judgmental, 24/7 guidance on friendships, family, work and romance. After finding that most of its users were young men, Meeno leaned into voice-based practice for dating and social confidence - positioning itself as a 'Duolingo for dating.' It is backed by Sequoia Capital, Andrew Ng's AI Fund and NEA.
Friend
Friend is a consumer AI startup making a $129 always-listening pendant that texts the wearer with commentary, jokes and emotional support. Founded by Harvard dropout Avi Schiffmann - the teenager behind the viral nCoV2019 COVID tracker - Friend bet $1.8 million on its one-word domain and then $1 million on a deliberately graffiti-bait subway campaign that turned New York City into an unfiltered focus group.
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.