Speek Health

Speek Health is a London-based digital mental health company that provides clinical care for families affected by teenage self-harm. The company starts from a frequently overlooked observation: most existing treatment is built around the young person directly, leaving parents — who are typically the ones holding the family system together through a crisis — without structured support of their own. Speek aims to fill that gap.

The platform combines group therapy sessions led by clinical psychologists, personalised support plans with skills-building exercises, and a helpline staffed by qualified clinicians. The product was designed in collaboration with HCPC-accredited clinical psychologists, including a founding clinical officer who trained at South London and Maudsley Trust. Speek is open to families across the UK and works with NHS partners and insurers as well as direct-to-family subscribers.

The company was co-founded in 2022 by Kanu Batra and Nessrin Younes, who met through Zinc's fourth venture-building cohort. Speek raised approximately $1 million in pre-seed funding in 2024, with participation from Zinc, Octopus First Cheque, Syndicate Room, Lightbulb Trust, Daring Capital and a syndicate of angel investors and family offices. The capital is being used to scale the platform across the UK, deepen NHS and insurer partnerships, and broaden the company's care offering into related areas of adolescent mental health.