The App That’s Aimed At Helping Black Women With Postpartum Depression

Jade Kearney, who experienced postpartum depression herself, developed an app to help solve this particular problem. Although the journey as a Black female founder hasn’t been easy – she’s keeping hope.

Kearney’s mental wellness journey began soon after giving birth to her daughter as she experienced postpartum depression and anxiety, and had difficulty finding a community and culturally competent resources to turn to. The birth of her daughter made her realize the neglect Black mothers face when it comes to their mental well-being.

But the mother had to teach herself about running a company and figure out funding mechanisms on the fly, all while facing obstacles and roadblocks directly related to being a Black woman founder trying to found a company aimed at other Black women.

The app, She Matters, takes a multifaceted view of Black women’s health problems.

First of all, it has created a community of therapists, which have been trained in a 12-week certification program, so that they make their therapy culturally relevant to these women.

Therapists pay a fee to be on the app and be connected to Black women who want therapy. But what’s different with the app and others is that these therapists are culturally competent and understand the very tumultuous relationship that Black women have had in the healthcare system.

Women who need therapy come to the platform and sign up to be connected with one of the trained therapists.

The company reportedly already has 180 trained therapists on the site and another 700 on the waiting list, and when they opened the app out of beta to the public in January, 7,000 people signed up with 3,400 in the first 24 hours alone, she reports.

Kearney works on the app with her co-founder Marguerite Pierce. So far, they have raised $300,000 in angel money and she also took part in Techstars and is in talks with multiple investors with the goal of raising $2 million in seed funding.