California company acquires therapy app from IU student
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A computer science major in the Luddy School of Informatics, Computing and Engineering at Indiana University created an AI-based therapy and personal growth app last year and has already found a buyer.
Matt Gacek, now a junior at IU, began development of Theia last July and then sold the technology to California-based health and wellness platform Miri by the end of the year.
Gacek’s app, which was developed with the help of resource at the Luddy School and IU’s Shoemaker Innovation Center, is based on a model of more than 5,000 data points using multiple psychology research papers and therapy notes.
Users check in daily and report their moods, habits and what they’re thankful for, which lets AI understand and know them, IU said. The users will then enter a text-based chat with AI.
IU said the model uses a customer service system to understand how to text in a way that’s specific to therapy and to specific users.
“Therapists give tidbits of advice,” Gacek said, “but mostly it’s listening to you. That’s what the app is trained to do. The more you use it, the better it tracks how you feel throughout the week.”
Gacek said he wants to eventually get the app to a point where it can integrate a voice feature in addition to the text function.
The app was launched in September and had more than 600 users by early November. Gacek then sought to raise between $300,000 and $1 million and received a recommendation to connect with Miri, headquartered in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Miri CEO Amy Kelly made Gacek an offer after just an hour-long conversation. Financial details of the sale of his platform to Miri are not being disclosed.
IU said Miri is integrating Theia’s technology and user base to improve its own products.
Gacek still has another year of study at IU, but has received a job at Miri as an LLM software engineer. He credits the support and mentorship that he received along the way, particularly from Travis Brown, senior executive assistant dean of innovation, entrepreneurship and commercialization at IU.
“His instinct to put his solution into the market as quickly as possible so he could serve his target customers not only resulted in building a customer base almost immediately,” Brown said, “but also attracted interest from those looking to acquire the intellectual property he developed. Matt showed that courage, conviction and focus can result in impressive outcomes in a relatively short period of time. His success exemplifies the rapid pace of entrepreneurship being set by technological innovation.”
Gacek emphasized that his early success could not have happened on his own.
“I was able to bounce ideas with Travis. He helped me traverse this interesting path. A bunch of people were pivotal in making this happen,” he said. “I got very lucky. I hope that something like this inspires other students that they can do it, as well.”