GIMBHI’s daily mental health update — 4/29/26

🎖️ Helus Pharma partners with TARA Mind to advance veteran mental health (Financial Post) — 04/28/26
TL;DR: Helus Pharma teamed up with TARA Mind and VETS to boost veteran recruitment for its Phase 3 HLP003 trial treating major depressive disorder, aligning with Trump’s recent Executive Order on serious mental illness.

🏙️ Chicago invests $16.2M to expand mental health safety net and launch street psychiatry (CBS News Chicago) — 04/29/26
TL;DR: The Chicago Department of Public Health is launching the Healthy Chicago Mental Health Collective with 53 partner organizations, adding a street psychiatry pilot to reach people with serious mental illness, substance use disorders, and homelessness outside traditional clinic settings.

🍄 EPISODE trial finds psilocybin shows mixed results for treatment-resistant depression (Kenneth J. Bender, Psychiatric Times) — 04/29/26
TL;DR: The triple-blinded EPISODE phase 2b trial of 144 patients found psilocybin produced early symptom reduction at week 1 but failed to outperform active placebo at the 6-week primary endpoint, highlighting challenges of unblinding and expectancy effects.

🤖 AMA urges Congress to tighten safeguards on AI mental health chatbots (Jessica Hagen, MobiHealthNews) — 04/27/26
TL;DR: The American Medical Association sent letters to House and Senate caucuses calling for stronger regulation of AI mental health chatbots, including transparency requirements, crisis-detection safeguards, advertising restrictions, and stricter protections for minors.

🧠 Tava Health raises $40M Series C to expand behavioral health platform (Joyce Famakinwa, Modern Healthcare) — 04/28/26
TL;DR: Salt Lake City-based Tava Health raised $40M in a Series C led by Centana Growth Partners to evolve into a full-stack behavioral health platform, launching three new products including an AI-powered practice management tool, a zero-budget employer benefit, and a care-navigation suite.

🧪 ARPA-H launches $139M EVIDENT initiative to transform behavioral health treatments (HHS Press Office) — 04/21/26
TL;DR: ARPA-H announced the first research teams for its $139.4M EVIDENT initiative, which includes at least $50M for psychedelic research, aiming to develop FDA-ready clinical endpoints and objective biomarkers for rapid-acting therapies like neuromodulation, digital interventions, and neuroplastogens.

🌐 Bliss raises €232.4k to build culturally intelligent AI therapy infrastructure (Rahul Raj, EU-Startups) — 03/11/26
TL;DR: Albanian-Finnish startup Bliss raised €232.4k in angel funding led by Keiretsu Forum, Finest Love VC, and Plug and Play to develop therapist-trained AI companions and a culturally attuned therapy platform serving diaspora communities across 10+ countries.

🎮 brainjo raises €2M seed to advance VR-based digital therapies for ADHD (Amit Chowdhry, Pulse 2.0) — 04/23/26
TL;DR: German startup brainjo raised €2M in seed funding led by HTGF High-Tech Gründerfonds, with participation from MEDICE and angel investors, to develop a VR-based Digital Health Application (DiGA) for children with ADHD that can be prescribed and reimbursed through health insurance.

🇮🇳 Amaha raises Rs 50 crore in extended Series A led by Fireside Ventures (Team StartupCity, SiliconIndia) — 04/26
TL;DR: Bengaluru-based mental health startup Amaha (formerly InnerHour) raised Rs 50 crore (~$6M) at a Rs 300 crore valuation, with Fireside Ventures leading alongside Shreyas Shibulal and Lightbox, to scale its platform serving 6M+ users with 220,000+ therapy sessions.