Our vision is a future where mental health is accessible and equitable - Claudia Radu & Gaurav Sood, Circe

Circe is a UK-based impact-startup that connects women with clinical group therapy, looking to make premium care more accessible and less isolating for those who need it the most. It was co-founded by Claudia Radu and Gaurav Sood, as it’s a topic they are both passionate about. For Claudia, the “why” is deeply personal, as she spent much of her early life struggling with anxiety, depression and eventually being diagnosed with OCD after two full years of therapy. 

They gave it the name Circe after a Greek Goddess known for her magical abilities, who had to take destiny into her own hands after being banished to an island. That’s what they want to empower women to do -  take control of their own mental health through this platform.

“Accessing therapy was isolating, slow, and expensive, and treatments were built around male diagnostic norms, leaving my needs largely unaddressed.” she says.  “With Circe, we’re building a solution we wish had existed when I was at my lowest, because I’m not alone in my struggle to access mental health care.”

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Claudia Radu has always known that she wanted her work to have a deeper purpose. She studied Political Economy at university and then started her career in the NGO sector. She quickly realised that even though the work of these organisations is critical, she needed more.

“That led me into the impact start-up world. I joined the founding team at Unrest, the UK’s first accelerator dedicated to B2C, impact-driven businesses. There, I designed and delivered over 400 hours of live educational content and grew the community from zero to more than 800 founders, investors, and partners. 

It was an incredible learning experience that gave me a front-row seat to the realities of building early-stage companies and cemented my passion for mission-led start-ups.”

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Gaurav Sood started his career as a Management Consultant at McKinsey & Company, before getting a full scholarship to the University of Oxford. He was an early employee and then Chief of Staff at Zego, the UK’s first insurtech unicorn, then he joined the investment team at a growth equity fund, was on the board of several tech companies and restructured his family business into a  profitable diversified group of wholly-owned operating subsidiaries doing ~$40 million in turnover. 

“We’re often asked how we came to found this startup together and what it’s like starting a company as husband and wife. We both come from countries where it’s very common for families to launch and support ventures together. In many ways, this dynamic felt natural to us.

Of course, like any co-founders, we’ve faced challenges. Start-ups often fail due to co-founder misalignment, and it hasn’t always been smooth sailing. Defining our roles and setting boundaries has been essential, though living those boundaries day to day can be harder when you’re also married. If you’re not careful, 99% of your conversations end up being work related, which isn’t very romantic.

At the same time, we view being partners in both life and business as our superpower. When your values and long-term vision are aligned, you build on a foundation of trust and shared purpose. That alignment has allowed us to pull in the same direction and stay resilient, even when things get tough.”

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According to Circe’s co-founders, there are over 1 million women in the UK waiting for therapy, with shortages of more than 2,000 therapists - this forces people to  wait up to 18 months or pay hundreds for private sessions.

“Women are also disproportionately affected, experiencing higher rates of anxiety, depression, and burnout while carrying the dual burden of work and caregiving. Those who need help most are often priced out, creating a cycle where poor mental health and financial strain reinforce each other.

To make matters worse, most diagnostic frameworks are based on male symptoms, which means women are frequently under- or misdiagnosed, leaving their mental health needs overlooked and underserved.

Circe delivers 10x the scalability of traditional therapy at 1/10th the cost, while tackling one of the biggest drivers of poor mental health - social isolation - through community-led healing.” Gaurav adds.

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The concept of the platform they developed is very simple. Claudia explains how Circe works:

“We match users into a group of 10 peers based on symptoms, life experience and conditions - like workplace stress, reproductive health, or burnout, ensuring they’re surrounded by people who truly understand them. 

Users join weekly online group therapy sessions that are led by a clinical therapist, providing structured, safe, and clinically effective support at a fraction of the cost of 1:1 therapy. Between sessions, our platform provides reminders, exercises, and progress tools to keep you on track with your mental healthcare journey. 

‍Additionally, with opt-in consent, we aim to transcribe and anonymise session data. This helps close the gender data gap in mental healthcare research and improves how we match and support users over time.”

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Currently, the team at Circe is focused on building the community and the clinical product, as well as the referral program. The long term vision is to contribute to a future where “mental health is accessible and equitable, breaking the vicious circle where poverty worsens mental health by ensuring every woman, regardless of income, can access affordable, evidence-based support.” Claudia says.

“What’s exciting is that our business model actually benefits from scale, unlike many digital health platforms. The more people we match, the better our outcomes become, because we can form more nuanced and targeted groups. So, growth for us isn’t just about revenue, it’s about impact. That’s what makes us leap out of bed every morning.”

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Claudia and Gaurav are currently going through the GoodTech Accelerator, a UK-based program they joined to grow Circe. Participation helps them especially because they meet a lot of supportive people “from Emma to David and all the wonderful startup founders who are part of our cohort. In fact, this interview wouldn’t have been possible without the GoodTech Ventures team.”, Gaurav adds. 

They are now focused on a clinical therapy group for Post Natal Depression, as perinatal mental health problems affect at least 1 in 5 new or expectant mothers and suicide remains the leading cause of direct maternal death in the first year after pregnancy, according to Circe’s founders.

Thus, in the next 6 months, they need to spead awareness about what they are doing, through media, bloggers, influencers etc., and to build partnerships with family hubs, maternity wards, midwifery communities, local councils, charities associated with maternal mental health, GPs etc. whose communities we could help. 

If you can contribute to Circe’s mission, reach out to Claudia or Gaurav.

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Finally, we wanted to know, from their perspective, the main challenges impact startups face and what they need more of to grow. Gaurav concludes:

“In many circles, impact can be a charged word. This is especially true in mainstream funding ecosystems where impact has almost perennially been lumped with lower risk-adjusted returns. 

This might explain why a lot of startups looking to raise funding are careful not to get branded as impact startups, even though impact might actually be their biggest moat - giving them deeper market insight, stronger customer alignment, or regulatory tailwinds.

So, the biggest challenge isn’t the impact itself; it’s navigating an investment ecosystem that still hasn’t figured out how to value impact properly, even when it directly drives long-term commercial advantage.

For impact startups to grow, it’s less about chasing more capital and more about finding mission-aligned investors and partners who actually understand the value of impact. They need funding that recognizes impact as a competitive advantage, not a liability.“

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Thank you, Claudia Radu & Gaurav Sood!