In times of pandemic, while there is a danger to physical health, there is also a threat to mental health as people face isolation, financial problems, relationship issues, and an uncertain future. Mental health counselling service providers see a rise in the number of people approaching them as people realize the importance of psychological fitness.
Korean startup Atomers that operates a non-face-to-face psychological counseling platform, Mind Cafe, announced recently that its sales in the first quarter of 2021 have increased by 1120% compared to the first quarter of 2020. Mind Café is an online psychological counseling platform with 850,000 subscribers, the largest in South Korea. It is evaluated as a leading company in the domestic online psychological counseling field regarding the number of users, experts, and sales.
Increase in Offline Counselling subscribers
Atomers officially launched Mind Cafe Pro as a paid consultation model in the second half of 2019 and announced that sales have been increasing sharply every month since the second half of 2020. Mind Café allows you to receive psychological counseling from an accredited academic certificate, a counseling psychologist with a master’s degree in a related field, or a clinical psychologist regardless of time or location. Mind Cafe’s counselors have expertise in various areas, such as marriage and parenting, work, career, trauma, and addiction.
Atomers said that the number of offline psychological care center users has also increased significantly. The positive online perception of psychological counseling through Mind Cafe has led to offline counseling. The offline psychological care center, established under direct management in Hannam and Bundang in 2020, provides three-dimensional testing programs such as cognitive/emotional testing and career learning along with a professional counseling clinic for children, families, and refugees.
Partnering with Government & Corporate clients
The most remarkable growth for Mind Café was EAP (Employee Assistant Program), a B2B(G) service. Atomers, which expanded its EAP business from last year, has Seoul City, Neowiz, GC Green Cross and its affiliates, Sandbox, Shinhan Investment Corp., Hanwha Life Insurance, Orange Life (Shinhan Life Insurance), Geniel, Mesh Korea as clients.
It has been recognized for its competitiveness by providing EAP to government agencies. Atomers’ EAP use institutions have increased to about 60.
In addition, Atomers is about to sign contracts with more than 10 large organizations, including financial companies, insurance companies, pharmaceutical companies, large IT companies, and local governments. In the future, Atomers plans to expand its market share in the B2C and B2B (G) psychological counseling market by providing EAP to more diverse institutions.
Help for COVID-19 affected
On the other hand, Atomers is also actively showing social value activities. Atomers provided free psychological counseling to victims of the wildfire in Gangwon-do in 2019 and provided psychological counseling for small businesses suffering from COVID-19 impact. This year, free online counseling is provided to people with disabilities who complain of depression because of COVID-19 infused isolation.
In addition, psychiatrists Jae-jin Yang and Jae-woong Yang, who are participating as Atomers advisors and directors, respectively, have a YouTube channel for psychiatric specialists, “Yang Bro’s Spirit World,” which has secured more than 140,000 subscribers in one year since its establishment in 2020.
“As the perception that mental health is as important as physical health has spread recently, the number of clients and institutions using Mind Café has increased significantly,” said Lee Seung-won, director of Atomers Psychological Research Institute, in a media statement. “We want to be a mental health care platform that provides more in-depth and various types of mental health-related services online, beyond counseling,” he said.
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