Unobravo.com is the name of a successful Made in Italy startup that, beating out nine other competitors, won the SIOS22 Winter Edition organised by StartupItalia and was awarded Startup of the Year 2022!
An idea ahead of its time
Unobravo.com is a benefit company created in 2019 based on the idea of Neapolitan psychologist Danila De Stefano, who was convinced of the usefulness of helping those in need of psychological support remotely. This idea’s usefulness would dramatically emerge only a year later, when with the outbreak of the pandemic, many activities usually carried out in person began to be organised remotely, not least the sessions with psychologists and psychiatrists.
The origins of the project
Neapolitan, born in 1992, Danila De Stefano is listed among Forbes Italy’s Under 30 2021 in the Healthcare category. The idea of creating Unobravo.com came up during her work experience in the United Kingdom when she felt the need to contact a psychologist, possibly an Italian one. The difficulties she encountered in the search eventually led her to propose herself as an online psychologist, mainly addressing Italian ex-pats, and at the end of 2019, after testing the goodness of the idea, she gathered an initial team of nine psychologists with a new website, which she called, precisely, ‘Unobravo’. Today, the site brings together more than 2500 carefully selected psychologists and has over 80,000 patients.
A careful selection to offer the best service
The company not only selects the most suitable professionals for online counselling but also creates a match between psychologist and patient through online questionnaires. The aim is to match the most compatible professionals and patients. The service is then always monitored to ensure that the level of quality is constant over time.
Objective: to break down the cultural taboo on mental health
Therefore, Unobravo.com’s mission has strong social value, which has pleased the financiers, who have invested 17 million euros in the project’s development. Leading the financing was Insight Partners, an American fund that, for the first time, has invested in an Italian company!
‘The biggest challenge? It is to break down the cultural taboo on mental health – still particularly experienced in Italy – and to improve the wellbeing of the community ‘ said De Stefano.
Congratulations to those who help even remotely, break down barriers and bring Italy to the world!