companies

Slingshot AI

Builds Ash, a mobile app powered by a foundation model trained specifically on psychology and therapeutic dialogue rather than general internet text.

Slingshot AI was started by Daniel Cahn, an AI engineer, and Neil Parikh, best known for co-founding and scaling the mattress company Casper. Rather than fine-tuning an existing general-purpose model, the team trained its own foundation model on clinical and psychological material, aiming for a chatbot that behaves more like a trained clinician working through a session than a generic assistant that happens to discuss feelings. That model powers Ash, which the company opened to the public in July 2025 after roughly 50,000 beta users tested it. Ash is positioned as a companion for reflection and skill-building between therapy sessions or for people who have no therapist at all, with explicit guardrails steering acute crisis situations toward hotlines and emergency services rather than continued chat. Based in New York, Slingshot AI has raised about $93 million to date, including a Series A extension led by Radical Ventures and Forerunner Ventures alongside earlier backers Andreessen Horowitz, Felicis and Menlo Ventures, making it one of the better-funded newer entrants in AI-driven mental health support.

Headquarters

New York, United States

Sector

applications