Charles Gorintin lent itself to a very personal exercise. At a press conference, the co-founder of the start-up Alan told of his depression, which appeared in 2013 while he was working at Facebook: “I worked twelve to fifteen hour working days, three hours of transport, I was far from my family and my friends, I slept badly. After months at this rate, I broke down. I had reached a point of no return. The leader then announced his return to France, medication and the lack of medical follow-up. The case of Charles Gorintin is not isolated.
Nearly 13 million people in France are affected by mental health problems, according to the Mutualité Française. In a company, almost one in two employees report psychological distress and a third suffers from depression. Figures up 15 points for a year, according to a recent study by Psychodon. The pandemic, which has generalized telework and therefore isolation, is partly responsible.
Personalized support
So, to lower these figures, Alan’s teams worked on a mental health offer, released discreetly this summer. Called “Alan Mind”, it takes the form of a medical monitoring platform that treats both mild disorders (search for meaning, impostor syndrome, etc.) and more complex problems, such as depression or crisis. anxiety at work.
To seek treatment, all you need to do is complete a questionnaire on your emotional state, which gives rise to a mental health check-up with a mapping of the patient’s psychological strengths and risks. Personal support is then offered with exercises and individual sessions led by a therapist. A monthly and anonymous report is sent to human resources in order to enable them to identify recurring problems and organize thematic workshops.
This offer was not designed entirely at Alan’s. The start-up, which began its adventure with health insurance, has chosen to buy Jour, an American company specializing in well-being, for $ 20 million. This is the very first acquisition of the tricolor unicorn, which has just passed the 200,000 member mark. Created at the end of 2018, this young shoot is a general public journaling application based on behavioral and cognitive therapy, a method recognized worldwide in mental health.
The question of the “super app”
The Day offer is not integrated into the Alan platform. A dedicated site has been created, and current Alan customers do not automatically benefit from the solution, billed at 5 euros per month per employee. To date, five companies have already adopted Alan mind, including the Brut media. While the start-up is moving more and more towards a “super app” of health, the Alan and Alan Mind merger has not yet taken place. “Everything is possible, we think about it a lot”, confides Jean-Charles Samuelian-Werve, co-founder and CEO of Alan.
This American acquisition does not mean, however, that the start-up will develop across the Atlantic. “This is not planned for the coming years,” said the CEO, who intends to launch Alan Mind soon in the two countries where it is present, namely Belgium and Spain. A third country, still undisclosed, will be opened next year.
