YourDOST, an online counselling and emotional wellness platform, has raised $1.2 million (approx Rs 8 crore) in a pre-series A round led by SAIF Partners with repeat participation from seven angel investors — Venk Krishnan (NuVentures), Subbarao Telidevara (NuVentures), Phanindra Sama (Redbus), Aprameya Radhakrishna (TaxiForSure), Paula Mariwala (Seedfund), Vibhu Garg (Unicommerce) and Gaurav Bhalotia (Flipkart).

YourDOST will use the funds to rope in senior professionals from the industry in key leadership positions and to expand its operations. “With the experience of SAIF Partners backing us and the funds we have raised, we are ready to accelerate our growth, expand the team and operations and reach out to more and more people,” said Richa Singh, CEO, YourDOST.

Through this online platform which is available as a free service both through web portal and mobile app, users can choose to get into a live chat, voice call, video call or book an appointment with the expert of their choice.

“With its strong focus on quality supply and maintaining user anonymity, YourDOST presents a unique proposition for consumers to overcome the prevailing hesitation associated with openly talking about mental issues. With this investment SAIF continues to identify and nurture businesses, right from seed stage/pre-Series A to beyond,” said Mridul Arora, Principal, SAIF Partners.

YourDOST was founded in December 2014 by IIT-Guwahati alumnus Richa Singh, along with IIM-Bangalore’s Puneet Manuja, Northeastern University alumnus Satyajeet Nandekar and Prakhar Verma, acomputer science graduate from BMSCE, Bengaluru.

Source: The Economic Times