Key Investor Signals
Published a student chatbot feasibility study
A peer-reviewed 2026 study enrolled 42 students; 20 active users generated 286 interactions over two to four weeks, providing evidence on engagement and self-reflection.
Secured CHF 129,999 for an ETH Zurich project
BRIDGE awarded Matteo Pinna non-dilutive funding for a 12-month mental health app project at ETH Zurich, running from March 2025 to February 2026.
Earned Vesalius Innovation Award runner-up honors
Scientific publisher Karger named Safespace a 2025 Vesalius Innovation Award runner-up at its London final, recognizing the Swiss project’s AI-driven mental health support.
Team
Matteo Pinna
CEO and Co-founder
- Completed a PhD at ETH Zurich in behavioral and data science, the research background from which Safespace emerged.
- Developed statistical software packages with 150,000 downloads by April 2025, including tools for visualizing economic data.
- Co-authored research on media effects and health behavior in Scientific Reports and Political Analysis.
Oriane Pierrès
Co-founder
- Completed doctoral research at the University of Zurich on how students with disabilities experience AI in higher education.
- Contributed to the University of Zurich’s AI Buddy assistant, leading branding work and supporting user experience design.
- Worked as a research assistant at ZHAW from 2021 to 2024 on making Swiss higher education more accessible.
Product
Safespace is a mobile mental wellbeing app for athletes. It combines an AI-guided conversational diary, mood tracking and peer support, while letting users decide what to share with coaches or sport psychologists. Personal conversations stay private, with organizational views based on selected or aggregated data.
Private AI-guided reflection
Athletes use a conversational diary for self-reflection and information drawn from expert content. Conversation history stays on the device, and messages are anonymized before reaching servers.
Support from trusted peers
Athletes share moods, milestones and encouragement with a chosen circle of friends. The app brings back supportive messages and reminders of past achievements when users are having difficult days.
Controlled wellbeing sharing
Users choose what to share with coaches and sport psychologists. The platform is designed to provide team mood and tiredness views, anonymous topic summaries and aggregate organizational wellbeing reports.
Market Overview
Digital mental health is already distributed through both consumer subscriptions and employer or health-plan channels. Headspace’s organizational reach shows that mental health tools can scale beyond direct-to-consumer use, while athletes remain a distinct segment where privacy and stigma can influence whether support is used.
For sports organizations, the opportunity is to offer support without turning personal conversations into management data. Safespace’s model keeps individual interactions private while allowing users to share selected information and organizations to see aggregate wellbeing trends, creating a route through teams and other sports organizations.
Estimated worldwide mental health app revenue in 2024, across consumer and organizational channels.
Companies offered employees Headspace access through employers or health plans as of September 2026.
Across 11 studies involving 3,415 athletes, 22.4% sought formal mental health support.
In Safespace’s May 2026 survey of 84 athletes, 40% used generic AI chatbots for sport-related issues.
Comparable Outcomes
Sayana
Sayana built an AI-guided self-care app that used chat-based check-ins and mood tracking to personalize emotional wellbeing exercises. Headspace Health acquired Sayana in January 2022, adding its personalization technology and product team to its mental health platform.
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Sources
This profile was built from public company materials, ecosystem sources, market references, and professional profiles.