How LISSUN's Founder Turned His Personal Crisis Into The Startup's Mission Statement

Anxiety, depression, burnout, loneliness, low self-esteem — these are all part of mainstream discussions today on social media and in the public sphere, yet access to professional help and therapists is a pain point that technology has not completely solved.

Even if there is a lot less stigma around seeking help for mental wellbeing today than a decade ago, this has not addressed the accessibility barrier or even affordability, leaving millions of Indians outside the scope of mental health counselling.

Dozens of mental health apps have tried to break through, but it’s a problem that’s persistent — therapy is not cheap and no app has been able to bridge the gap yet. When Krishna Veer Singh and Tarun Gupta decided to launch their own app, the thesis was built around access and affordability, besides other critical pillars.

Speaking to Inc42 about LISSUN’s core tents, cofounder and CEO Singh said the company is built around 6As — Awareness, Acceptance, Anonymity, Accessibility, Affordability, and Availability.

The Gurugram-based startup is looking to not just cater to adults who know the importance of mental wellbeing in the modern age, but even children and younger Indians that are yet to brave the difficulties of the wider world

Singh’s belief is that mental health issues often stem from childhood trauma or early experiences that are never addressed in time. Whether this is from academic pressure, emotional neglect, bullying, or untreated anxiety — these incidents and experiences silently shape the long-term mental health for any individual.

And as people age and mature, problems don’t just disappear. Rather, they evolve into adulthood struggles of stress, insecurity, self-esteem problems, coping difficulties, struggles with anger and grief management, anxiety, depression, and burnout.

For Singh and Gupta, tackling this at an early stage is vital, and targets the root of the issue in many cases. But where did this journey begin?

The Story Behind LISSUN

The world of startups was not new for LISSUN CEO Singh. After finishing his MBA, he worked with some of the fastest-growing tech startups in India such as Flipkart and Droom, and had a stint with Uber India as well.

“Switching industries was never a challenge for me, I have done semiconductors to telecom, then ecommerce to mobility. What mattered more was the opportunity to solve a real problem at scale,” the cofounder claimed, adding that the real trigger for LISSUN came in 2020, when his role at Uber was impacted due to the pandemic.

In fact, Singh claims this pushed him into a mental health crisis and since this wasn’t the first such episode in his life, he turned to therapy and professional help.

But even before he could begin, Singh found it difficult to accept that he actually needed help. The fear of judgment, the discomfort of stigma was real, he recalled.

This experience and hesitation is a key aspect that LISSUN is aiming to solve. Singh’s goal wasn’t just to launch another mental health app, it was to integrate mental wellness into everyday life, especially in high-stress, underserved domains. For this, he and his cofounder had to solve for awareness first.

The duo knew that it had to go where people already were and not just wait for them to come. So the founders started with the healthcare segment. An early partner was NephroPlus, a renal care network, to provide mental and emotional support to kidney transplant and dialysis patients, as well as their caregivers, through both one-on-one and group therapy sessions. These partnerships with clinics and hospitals became their B2B2C healthcare vertical.

“We decided to start with patients who were dealing with chronic conditions like infertility, cancer, and diabetes, where emotional distress is high but rarely addressed through therapy,” the cofounder told Inc42.

Secondly, instead of simply partnering with therapists, LISSUN brought them on board as full-time employees and built an in-house clinical team.

Besides healthcare, Singh and Gupta also targeted students who go through the pressure churn multiple times a year due to exams. “Adolescents preparing for high-stakes exams like JEE and NEET often experience extreme anxiety, depression, and burnout. We went to coaching institutes in hubs like Kota, Varanasi, and Indore, and deployed therapists on the ground for immediate physical support, and online for extended care,” said Singh.

This GTM strategy is what resulted in the launch of Sunshine by LISSUN in 2023, a vertical focussed on children with special needs such as autism, attention deficit disorder (ADD/ADHD), and developmental disorders or issues.

Sunshine centres are physical spaces where parents can engage with therapists and begin a tailored therapy journey for their children or wards. Currently, the brand offers a 360-degree mental health model, from self-help at home to online consultations to in-person therapy.

Thus LISSUN has created a dual revenue engine — partnership with healthcare providers, clinics and coaching institutes for the B2B2C business and directly offering services to parents and their children through the Sunshine centres.

“All three verticals have seen growth. Last year, around 35% of our business came from the child segment. Today, 65% of our business now comes from the child vertical, while the remaining 35% comes from education and healthcare,” Singh claimed.

Of course, LISSUN is not just a chain of mental therapy centres. The digital component of the phygital experience is the LISSUN app, which is used by therapists for taking notes, and by individuals to discover self-help tools and resources.

The app is also the hub for mental health exercises, recording progress when it comes to specific goals and more. For individuals under the Sunshine programmes, LISSUN uses a slightly different approach.

“During every session, the child’s session is recorded only after parental consent. The recording is anonymised and encrypted, and it helps us create a personalised health plan, which is then shared with the parents. This not only helps them understand their child better but also guides them on what needs to be done at home to support ongoing progress,” Singh added.

Singh added that LISSUN is also working on launching a WhatsApp-based AI assistant to help parents follow the home plan, answer their questions, and support their child’s progress outside the centre.

Room For Mental Health

In the mental health space, LISSUN faces direct competition from a growing number of players like Google-backed Wysa, Shyft-owned Mindhouse, YourDOST, Amaha, and Trijog, besides international platforms like BetterHelp.

Most Indian mental wellness startups follow an app-first model — offering AI chatbots, a marketplace for therapy access, or peer group support — but their primary model is around connecting individuals with therapists.

While many of these have partnerships with institutions for the B2B2C channel, not many cater to children and young adults directly. This is perhaps the differentiating factor that LISSUN is banking on. LISSUN prioritises early, child-centric intervention, particularly for neurodevelopmental conditions and learning disabilities.

From the point of view of individual goals and outcomes, catering to children enables LISSUN to create personalised journeys for these patients over a longer course of time. This is essential for treatment of deep-seated issues and concerns such as trauma and anxiety.

The company claims to have helped over 7,000 children and served 75,000+ individuals in its lifetime through more than 1 Lakh therapy sessions. Admittedly that is not as large as other healthtech companies, but to its credit LISSUN is breaking some new ground when it comes to the mental health space.

According to the CEO, LISSUN’s gross revenue for FY25 stood at INR 10 Cr, as compared to INR 3 Cr in FY24. The company’s FY25 numbers could not be independently verified as the company has not filed its audited results. For context, LISSUN rival Wysa reported INR 10 Cr in revenue in FY23 with a net loss of over INR 14 Cr.

Singh did not clarify the company’s net profitability — in FY24, the company incurred a total loss of INR 9 Cr, as compared to INR 6 Cr in FY23. So while the revenue has grown, LISSUN has not yet found the right unit economics formula to get to sustainable growth.

Till date, the startup has raised over $4.6 Mn (INR 40 Cr) and is backed by the likes of Rainmatter, IvyCap Centures, Multiply Ventures, Inflection Point Ventures, RPSG Capital and other early stage VCs and angel investors.

One reason for the losses is that LISSUN has built a phygital model, which requires up-front investment in setting up centres. Besides the existing presence in metros and Tier I cities, Singh is planning an expansion to Tier II towns such as Kota, Indore, and Varanasi through partnerships with coaching institutes and hospitals.

Sunshine by LISSUN is currently present in Delhi-NCR, Jaipur, Pune, Hyderabad and Lucknow, with launches in Chennai, Mumbai, and Kolkata planned towards the end of 2025 or early 2026. The CEO foresees more than 50 Sunshine centres across India over the next four years.

Where The Challenge Lies

Data security and patient confidentiality is paramount in the mental health and wellness space, especially when we look at incidents in the past such as the huge Vastaamo hack in Finland from 2020, which resulted in a mass blackmail and ransom campaign against the hack’s victims.

A hack or breach of a mental health startup catering to young children would result in a similar public outcry in India, especially when the startup is supposed to protect the mental wellbeing of these students.

One could even say that data safety and security is more essential for LISSUN and other mental health startups than other marketplaces that sell physical goods. After all, ‘Anonymity’ is one of the 6As that Singh has built LISSUN around and this should extend towards cybersecurity in the tech context.

For now, LISSUN — and other mental health startups — are early in their journey. Despite taking the business to 3X revenue growth in FY25, Singh and Gupta have a mighty task on their hand.

The target audience base for mental wealth services is not as limited as some other sectors in India as long as price is not a huge factor.

With its phygital model, LISSUN has the channel mix to offer the right pricing for its services. But scaling up the revenue is not just a factor of getting the right customers or patients, but rather also growing the pool of therapists and experts who want to work with such apps rather than their individual practices.

This demand-supply tussle will be a critical character in the next chapter in LISSUN’s short journey thus far. Can it find a breakthrough?

[Edited by Nikhil Subramaniam]

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