25 November 2021

For immediate release

Kooth plc

("Kooth" or the "Company" or the "Group")

Kooth appoints Dr Tim Budden as Chief Technical Officer

Kooth (AIM:KOO), the UK's leading digital mental health platform, has appointed Dr Tim Budden as Chief Technical Officer (CTO). In this role, he will be responsible for the further development, and innovation, of Kooth's products and services, and will report directly to Tim Barker, Chief Executive Officer (CEO).

Tim brings over 26 years of deep technical expertise in the fields of artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), data science, natural language processing and building privacy-by-design platforms. He joins Kooth from Hazy, a deep-tech business focused on enabling data scientists to create privacy-safe data sets from business data. Prior to Hazy, Tim held senior positions at a number of high-profile companies including DataSift (acquired by Meltwater), Sensat and Clearstream where he led the product, engineering and data science teams. 

Tim Barker, Chief Executive Officer at Kooth said: "We believe the future of personalised digital mental healthcare won't be an AI chatbot, it will look more like Netflix; guiding you to relevant content, self-help programmes, and one-to-one support based on what's helped people like you in the past. Tim's deep expertise in machine learning and natural language processing is pivotal in helping us build this future. I couldn't be more excited to have Tim lead our team to create the future and make effective, personalised, mental healthcare available to all."

Tim holds a DPhil, Foundations in Physics and a BA (Hons) in Physics and Philosophy from the University of Oxford, and a MASt Part III Maths Tipos, specialising in physics from the University of Cambridge.

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About Kooth plc:

Kooth (AIM:KOO) is the UK's leading digital mental health platform. Our mission is to provide accessible and safe spaces for everyone to achieve better mental health. Our platform is clinically robust and accredited to provide a range of therapeutic support and interventions. All our services are predicated on easy access to make early intervention and prevention a reality.

Our four services are:

•           Kooth: for children and young persons

•           Kooth Student: for university and higher-education students

•           Kooth: for Adults

•           Kooth Work: for employees

Kooth is a fully safeguarded and pre-moderated community with a library of peer and professional created content, alongside access to experienced online counsellors. There are no thresholds for support and no waiting lists. Currently, Kooth sees over 4,000 logins a day.

For adults, Kooth operates across distinct locations and serves specific cohorts, including parents, teachers, victims of crime, and those who have suffered from or continue to experience domestic violence. It is also offered as a benefit by a number of corporate organisations delivering anonymous digital mental health support services to employees.

Kooth is the only digital mental health provider to hold a UK-wide accreditation from the British Association of Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP).