Moner Bondhu Secures UNICEF Venture Fund Investment

Moner Bondhu has been selected to receive an investment from the prestigious UNICEF Venture Fund. The announcement was made on November 28 through UNICEF’s official website. This investment is set to bolster an open-source platform featuring AI-driven solutions, aiming to enhance access to mental health services for children, students, and underserved communities.

This milestone highlights Moner Bondhu’s commitment to UNICEF’s mission of leveraging artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) to develop diagnostic models, predictive analytics, and data-driven health insights. These advancements aim to improve healthcare delivery and optimize resource allocation in marginalized regions. The proposed solution will enable faster care delivery through integration with multiple stakeholders and a proactive approach addressing children’s mental, physical, nutritional, and academic care. Notably, the platform will be open-sourced, community-driven, and scalable across various regions, cultures, and countries.

Commenting on the achievement, Tawhida Shiropa, CEO of Moner Bondhu, stated,
"Our in-house tech team has developed an AI-powered system called Manush-E, designed to help individuals assess their mental well-being using real-time data and receive expert interventions. This investment will support our efforts to scale up, enabling us to conduct more tech-based research and make mental health support accessible to even more people, especially children. This recognition proves that Moner Bondhu can develop and innovate global-standard tech solutions.”

During the investment period, Moner Bondhu will focus on enhancing its well-being services by training advanced machine learning models, refining intervention techniques, and improving the user experience for its AI-powered mental health tool, Manush-E.

The UNICEF Venture Fund received over 500 submissions from 71 countries. The rigorous selection process, which began in December 2023, involved multiple stages, including pitching, prototype testing, clinical trials, and due diligence. After completing this year-long evaluation process, Moner Bondhu emerged as one of the four selected startups. Alongside Moner Bondhu, startups from India, Kenya, and Colombia were also chosen.

This collaboration forms part of UNICEF Venture Fund’s broader initiative to support innovative startups addressing critical health challenges in marginalized communities, with a particular focus on improving the well-being of children in remote and fragile contexts.