James Oliver, founder of the co-founder matching app Kabila, has received a $25,000 seed grant after launching the Kabila Founder Mental Health Fund.
Backed by the Social Good Fund, the initiative received a $25,000 seed grant from Techstars Co-Founder Brad Feld to support founders’ mental health.
The Kabila Founder Mental Health Fund will provide free mental therapy for founders in the Kabila community.
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The Kabila Founder Mental Health Fund
Kabila Founder Mental Health Fund is an initiative to provide free mental therapy for founders who want it but can’t afford it. The target audience is founders in the Kabila community and those in the Kabila Ventures portfolio, Oliver’s new pre-seed fund.
“So many early-stage founders I talk with are having a HARD time right now – making tough decisions like selling their homes and leaving their spouses to move out of state temporarily to chase opportunities to grow their startups,” Oliver wrote on his LinkedIn.
The founder will get four mental therapy sessions through BetterHelp or a therapist of their choice. The grants are named in honor of Oliver’s late grandmother, Carmen Reid, who courageously left her abusive marriage to raise her two children as a single parent. Sadly, Reid passed away due to a cerebral hemorrhage before Oliver’s birth, leaving behind a legacy that continues to inspire.
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“She died very young of a cerebral haemorrhage, probably from all the pressure that she was dealing with. “Maybe she would not have passed away so young if she had access to mental therapy resources,” Oliver said.
Struggling With Depression As A Founder
Oliver understands the difficulties of being a founder. His first startup, WeMontage, failed while he was at the early stages of fatherhood. His twins were born prematurely, each via an emergency C-section. Two days after his children’s birth, he went to the accelerator, led by gener8tor. Before the demo day presentation, Oliver was met by an angel investor group willing to invest $250,000.
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“I dropped to my knees and thanked God because everything I was going through at that time was really hard. So that was my introduction to being a parent and entrepreneurship,” Oliver said in an interview with AFROTECH.
He’s been vocal about being in therapy. “Over the last four years, I quietly paid for 400 mental therapy sessions for parents who are entrepreneurs via the work I was doing with the Parentpreneur Foundation. And we didn’t receive any notoriety for this work.”
Brad Feld, a leading investor and co-founder of TechStars and Foundry, has also been frank about his struggles with depression.
You can donate to the Kabila Founders’ Mental Fund here.
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