Mental health startup Intellect teams up with Asia’s largest private healthcare group

March 16, 2023 :Intellect, the Singapore-located mental health platform now serving over three million users in 20 nations, is preparing for a new growth phase after striking a strategic alliance with IHH Healthcare, Asia’s most influential private healthcare group. IHH Healthcare will work with Intellect to expand and individual digital mental health programs for its patients, corporate customers, and attendants.

IHH Healthcare also funded the startup without disclosing the amount. IHH Healthcare is Intellect’s first strategic investor, and its additional backers include Tiger Global, Y Combinator, and Insignia Ventures.

Established in 2019, Intellect’s markets include Malaysia, India, Singapore, and Hong Kong. Its platform offers telehealth coaching, assistance like psychiatry or therapy and mental health screening that can be accomplished online or in person at an Intellect clinic. It even has self-guided cognitive behavioral therapy-based programs. Intellect has a client app but focuses primarily on enterprise customers who present its platform as a wellness advantage to their employees.

Intellect CEO and founder Theodoric Chew spoke to TechCrunch that the startup has been in contact with IHH Healthcare for sometime because of its market leadership status and started exploring partnership possibilities over the last year. One goal is to present a larger continuum of care across the companies’ regions, from preventative to specialized care. Chew said IHH Healthcare and Intellect would focus on APAC first and other areas.

So far, IHH Healthcare’s work with Intellect has included a pilot enterprise with maternity patients at Gleneagles Hospital Singapore and intends to offer the platform to corporate customers of IHH Singapore’s iXchange and IHH’s workers.

In a comment, IHH Healthcare group chief strategy and business development officer Ashok Pandit told, “Mental health problems affect one in every four persons. We are happy to invest in Intellect, a market leader in this rapidly expanding category, to boost their development and enhance access to millions more people who need support, care or therapy.”