Was it a pandemic? Have you followed too many ADHD TikTokers? Have smartphones fried our brains? Either way, technology solutions for ADHD are booming, from online drug delivery to websites and apps.
Something is definitely going on there. In 2020, there were 139.84 million he and 366.33 million adults affected by ADHD in the world. Adults with ADHD are said to lose an average of 22 days of productivity per year. Also, from 2003 to his 2011, childhood ADHD diagnoses in the US increased by 42%. And the mental health field (ADHD is part of it) took off a few years ago. Venture capitalists invested $1.4 billion in the European mental health sector in 2021, according to Deal Room data, but $354 million last year as VCs fled in the recession and more generally. reduced to dollars.
However, it is still very active. Based in London, HelloSelf matches patients with licensed therapists, covering a range of mental health conditions, including ADHD. From New York, Inflow, an app purported to help members better manage her ADHD through cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT)-based support, raised $11 million in a Series A round led by Octopus Ventures. procured. Centered is a desktop app that provides an AI voice coach to help ADHD sufferers stay focused (with pomodoro timer, calendar, and more). There are also “buddy sessions” for productivity among members and her ADHD coach. Ukrainian startup Numo is an app for adults with ADHD that gamifies daily tasks and gets support.
Healios has raised £7m ($9.9m) in a series A round to expand its platform across the UK.
Now we have sidekicks. His pitch is that it is a “productivity browser”. Today we are launching many features for ADHD sufferers and distractions.
Sidekick is a 2020 Y Combinator cohort member and has raised $2 million in a round led by Kleiner Perkins in March 2021.
The company claims that users with ADHD have noticed a “significant improvement” after using the browser. The Chromium-based browser was founded by Dmitry Pushkarev (a Stanford PhD in molecular biology), a former Amazon executive and his ADHDer).
So how does it work?
AdBlock 2.0 is built into the browser to disable distractions. Focus Mode Timer disables all sounds, badges, and notifications for a selected amount of time or indefinitely. A task manager organizes her day. It has a built-in Pomodoro timer. It also claims that he is 3x faster than Chrome, which is obviously important for him with ADHD. Suffice it to say that there are many other distraction-killing features, but I’m not going to list them all here.
CEO and founder Dmitry Pushkarev said in a statement: This gap really hurts hundreds of millions of users. We believe that reducing web distractions will reduce anxiety and improve people’s quality of work and quality of life. “
He said the startup plans to monetize through corporate subscribers who pay to put their ADHD-suffering employees into a more productive mode.
Unfortunately for Sidekick, there are plenty of competitors in the browser space that are dwindling their profile, including Arc, Brave, and Vivaldi.
That said, Sidekick’s interest in ADHD (geddit?) could gain a valuable niche, especially given the apparent pandemic of ADHD sufferers.
