Last year, CeCe Cheng found herself in a relationship she now calls emotionally abusive. The longtime startup exec and venture capitalist began dating a partner in late 2019 who she says lied, manipulated her, and threatened self-harm when she tried to leave. (She has chosen not to identify the partner.) “I began to question my own reality and sanity,” she reflects now.
As she eventually left the relationship, therapy helped Cheng name the experience. But the interaction that she says was most critical to helping her recover was connecting with a group of her peers—in this case, women who had also had relationships with her ex-partner.
Those connections amounted to a hyper-specific support group, but the experience got Cheng thinking about all the ways peer support helps people navigate tough situations. “You can read about how this happens to other people, but you still feel like you might be the only one,” she says. “I’m a big believer in therapy, but I wasn’t getting the same thing from my therapist as I was getting from these conversations. It was by talking to other people that I really started to move forward, started to heal, and started to be able to look forward instead of ruminating on exactly where I went wrong.”
This week, she’s launching ShareWell, a tech platform for peer support that aims to connect people through support groups at scale. While other platforms like Facebook groups and Meetup have hosted and coordinated support groups, both in person and virtual, Cheng believes that a dedicated platform for such gatherings will bring its own strengths. Her startup’s video technology includes features designed for sensitive group conversations, like ending a meeting when it dips below three people or allowing users to block each other on the video platform. The platform also allows for anonymity or first names only, as a traditional support group might.
Cheng is launching her business during a time of increased investor interest in the mental health space; investors put $1.5 billion into the category in 2020, according to Forbes and CB Insights. There are startups tackling the pain points of traditional therapy, like Alma and Real; platforms for coaching like the Prince Harry–backed BetterUp; and companies exploring group therapy options, similar to ShareWell’s approach. “There’s no reason why it shouldn’t be scalable, accessible, and affordable,” Cheng says of peer support and other mental health offerings.
Cheng, who previously headed partnerships for Andela, the business that connects companies with tech talent around the world, and served as a venture partner for Makers Fund, declined to disclose the amount of funding she’s raised for the business. Her angel investors include former Ancestry.com CEO Margo Georgiadis, Yelp cofounder Russel Simmons, and Forward CEO Adrian Aoun. The company has three full-time employees, Cheng and two engineers.
In its beta period, ShareWell has so far held 170 sessions for 700 participants, averaging three to eight attendees per group. In addition to meetings hosted via its own platform, which users can start themselves, the startup sources links to virtual support groups held by organizations like Overeaters Anonymous and Gamblers Anonymous, aiming to act as a directory for all kinds of support groups. User-created sessions can be centered around almost any topic, from big-picture issues like depression and anxiety to more specific experiences like family estrangement.
“We want to be the online home for peer support,” she says. “I’m hoping that in the future people think of peer support as something they can try alongside therapy and coaching.”
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