Mental health startup Bliss raises $270K to build culturally intelligent AI for therapy

Originally founded in Albania and headquartered in Finland, mental health startup Bliss has raised $270,000 in angel funding led by Keiretsu Forum, Finest Love VC, and Plug and Play to develop AI infrastructure designed to support culturally aware therapy services. The round combines angel investment and non-dilutive grants and represents the first Albanian-Finnish startup investment for the three investors.

Read more in our interview with Bliss co-founder and CEO Jona Doda.

Many mental health platforms and AI therapy tools are designed for monolingual and culturally homogeneous markets, even though more than 800 million people worldwide live outside their country of origin, where language and cultural context can play an important role in therapy.

As the mental health technology market becomes increasingly competitive and more AI-based tools emerge, Bliss is focusing on culturally specialised, clinician-supervised systems rather than general-purpose AI solutions.

The platform combines licensed therapists across more than 10 countries with AI-powered cultural and linguistic matching, connecting users with therapists who understand their language and cultural background while using AI systems designed to support, rather than replace, human care.

Bliss founder Jona Doda said the company is focusing on the cultural dimension of therapy, noting that many existing AI mental health tools fail to account for cultural context.

We’re not building another chatbot. We’re building AI that understands the cultural layer of mental health, because that’s where most systems fail.

The company is also developing therapist-trained digital companions, AI systems designed to reflect a therapist’s style, tone, and approach, intended to extend human-led care. This approach differs from many AI therapy tools currently on the market, which often rely primarily on large language models integrated into conversational interfaces.

With the new funding, the company plans to launch the first version of its therapist-trained AI companions, expand into additional diaspora markets, including the United States, scale partnerships with multinational employers, and further develop its AI governance and clinical oversight frameworks.