remental Inc.: Online Counseling "KIMOCHI" Provided Exclusively by Nationally Certified "Licensed Psychologists," Bringing Mental Maintenance into the Daily Routine Like an Esthetic Salon

Providing True Preventive Care in a Modern Society Where "1 in 5" Suffers from Mental Conditions

Hello, everyone. My name is Rioto Sato, CEO of remental Inc. Thank you for having me today.

Under our mission, "Zero Opportunity Loss due to Mental Health Issues," we are developing platforms that support mental health care and personal mind care.

We live in a stressful society, where the lifetime probability of suffering from mental illness is said to be "1 in 5." While the number of people struggling with mental conditions or feeling work-related stress continues to rise, there is still no definitive, preventive solution in the mental health domain. To address this issue, we provide our flagship online counseling service, "KIMOCHI," and our emotion analysis and sharing service, "Kokoro Share."

"KIMOCHI" was honored at the "Subscription Service Awards" last year, receiving high praise. Thanks to this traction, our registered users have exceeded 12,000 to date, and our session satisfaction rate remains at an exceptionally high level of over 96%. About 70% of our users are women in their 20s to 40s, using our service to resolve complex anxieties regarding their careers, relationships, and lifestyles.

In Japan, counseling is still viewed negatively as a last resort when a condition has become extremely severe. In contrast, our service allows users to find a highly compatible counselor on their smartphones and start a session in as little as 30 minutes. Most of our users do not use it as a severe medical treatment; rather, they incorporate it into their routines like going to a gym or a beauty salon, utilizing it to regularly reflect on and maintain their mental state.

A Professional Network of Exclusively Licensed Psychologists, Enhanced by AI

The core strength that guarantees our service quality lies in our counselors. We have built a platform where only holders of the national qualification "Licensed Psychologist" can register. This ensures that every user receives high-quality sessions at any time.

While AI-based counseling has received attention recently, we strongly believe that "the counseling session itself should not be replaced by AI." Mental care derives its fundamental value from human-to-human interaction, and replacing it with machine logic carries significant risks. On the other hand, AI plays a massive role in the "back-office operations" for counselors.

Specifically, the AI analyzes user diaries and speech-to-text session transcripts to generate emotion analytics, send alerts for severe conditions, and draft medical charts. By automating these chart-drafting tasks with AI, counselors can focus all their resources on human-centric, high-value operations: active listening and face-to-face dialogue. This balance of "human-to-human session" and "AI-backed support" is our way of utilizing technology.

Expansion into B2B and Future Platform Vision Utilizing Emotional Data

Our business model is a marketplace model that matches clients with professional counselors.

For our growth strategy, we launched our corporate B2B product in January. We support corporate wellness programs by providing integrated employee mental care, pulse surveys, training programs, and online counseling. We are preparing with numerous corporations for our full B2B commercial launch in March.

For our short-term roadmap, we plan to raise capital in June and target 100,000 registered users by the end of the year. In the long run, we plan to utilize the accumulated emotional and behavior log data generated through our online counseling and sharing tools.

Moving beyond mental health consultation, we aim to build a platform that links user emotion data to e-commerce (personalized product recommendations), tourism (optimal travel plans for mental recovery), medicine, education, and entertainment. For example, we want to create a future where we can recommend a tailored lifestyle or environment—like a theme park that naturally uplifts anyone's spirit—based on data. I look forward to discussions and meeting potential partners for business alliances, capital partnerships, and PoC support today. Thank you very much.

Q&A and Feedback

Mr. Nakazawa (Commentator): Thank you. By reframing mental health not as a clinical treatment but as a maintenance habit like a beauty salon or gym, you have lowered the entry barrier, which is driving great user traction. I have two questions. First, you restrict your platform's counselors exclusively to nationally certified "Licensed Psychologists." How do you acquire them and maintain their motivation? Second, how did you acquire the initial 12,000 users, and what are your marketing plans to scale to 100,000?

Mr. Sato: Thank you for your questions. Regarding the acquisition of Licensed Psychologists, I physically reach out to supervisors (opinion leaders in psychological associations) to build face-to-face trust. Getting these leaders' trust leads to introductions of their students and young professionals, which is our basic, hands-on recruitment network. In addition, we provide a solid incentive for counselors by offering high-quality "training and educational programs" within the platform. Psychologists are required to fulfill training credits to maintain their qualifications, and by providing advanced training alongside actual work, our platform naturally attracts top professionals.

Mr. Nakazawa: I see. The platform provides education and career benefits beyond simple job matching, which maintains strong relationships.

Mr. Sato: Exactly. Regarding user acquisition, our initial 12,000 users were acquired mostly through word-of-mouth (organic) and viral effects. Users who start using "Kokoro Share" like a daily diary naturally flow into our counseling service "KIMOCHI." Moving forward, we will scale toward our 100,000-user target by combining corporate employee referrals with digital advertising and marketing campaigns.

Mr. Nakazawa: I think your balance of keeping counseling human-centric while using AI to automate back-office chart drafting is highly logical. I look forward to your future growth.

Mr. Sato: Thank you. We will continue to build a society where people can live healthier, more vibrant lives through personal mind care.