ETH Zürich spin-off UZH Startup

The scientific blueprint
for mental wellbeing.

An app-based mental wellbeing and performance platform powered by safety- and privacy-focused AI — built on research, designed by scientists.

Supported by

Mental wellbeing, for
organisations who care
about their people.

A private space for self-reflection and an AI that provides reliable information grounded in expert knowledge. Our wellbeing data insights build self-awareness and performance, and help organisations allocate resources wisely and step in early, before things get worse.

Privacy by design

On-device anonymization and local-first architecture. Ethical data collection, with a clear overview of what's shared with friends, coaches and sport psychologists.

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Always learning

Built on research from top-level institutions like ETH Zürich and the University of Zurich, we make a commitment to keep validating our technology and product with ongoing research effort.

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Safety-focused AI

We build safeguard pipelines for self-harm, suicidality and psychosis that perform better than any end-user product on the market.

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A safe space,
available 24/7.

Self-work guided by AI, reliable information, community. Supporting — not replacing — human connection.

A unified app for wellbeing & performance

Track your mood and tiredness, and share with your community for mutual support.

AI support

An evidence-based self-reflection chatbot, with information-retrieval technology that surfaces accurate, expert-grounded knowledge for each user.

Community

Close friends, shared support and moments in Safespace become reminders of your achievements — and of the people in your corner.

Safespace app home screen — mood, moments and close friends
Safespace AI self-reflection chatbot
Safespace close-friends sharing screen

Four-pillar blueprint
for wellbeing.

First B2B platform for wellbeing at 360° — built by scientists, backed by real research. Our KPIs focus on wellbeing and prevention, not AI addiction.

Why Safespace

A four-pillar blueprint
for wellbeing.

Self-work, community, wellbeing and performance — four interlocking layers that turn mental wellbeing into something measurable, supportable and scalable across an entire organization.

AI safety Bio-markers driven Privacy tech Accessibility by design
Four-pillar blueprint: Performance, Self-work, Prevention, Community with Safespace bunny in the center
Pillar 4 · Performance

Mental bio-markers, ethical AI.

Wellbeing index built from passive bio-markers — language, audio, keystroke, spatial. Combined with self-monitoring it flags early signs of distress and lowers drop-out risk; combined with the physical signals athletes already track, it gives a measurable view of performance for tailored routines. We train our models on external datasets and only test their quality in passthrough — and when users choose to donate data, they can visualise the anonymisation before anything is shared.

Bio-markers diagram: language, audio, keystroke and spatial signals feeding AI models to produce a wellbeing index, mismatch flagging for prevention and combined with physical biomarkers for performance
Pillar 1 · Self-work

The AI chatbot.

A state-of-the-art AI chatbot with proprietary state-machine, memory-layers, safety-pipeline and information-retrieval technology.

  • State-machine — bio-marker-based classifiers balance tone and style to what each user needs.
  • Memory-layers — context length isn't the bottleneck; information gets lost in the middle. Our memory system cuts cost and sharpens retrieval of the user details that matter most.
  • Safety-pipeline — our safeguards reach the highest precision and recall of any end-user product on the market, stress-tested against self-harm, suicidality, psychosis and adversarial inputs.
  • Two-step hybrid nano-graph RAG — when athletes ask for advice, answers are grounded in expert content rather than training data, with 10× fewer hallucinations than GPT or Claude. Clients can update and add the content their athletes receive, avoiding the pitfalls of similarity-only retrieval. Our two-step procedure lets the system self-improve and shows clients the quality of answers without ever accessing personal information. Provide your own content knowledge, or tailor our baseline below.
Interactive · drag to move nodes, scroll to zoom
Pillar 3 · Wellbeing

Data-driven decisions, safeguarding users.

Users keep full control over what is shared with their coaches, sport psychologists and organisations. Chatbot conversations are never shared — stored on device and anonymised before they reach our servers. Based on user feedback we recommend the default setup below, where the sport psychologist is bound by confidentiality — adjusted to the number of athletes and the organisation's support structure.

For the organisation
  • Aggregated wellbeing reports. A clearer overview for smarter resource allocation.
For the sport psychologist
  • Topic map. Aggregated anonymous themes by timeframe (e.g. body image is up), plus themes to add to the content knowledge athletes ask for.
  • Mismatch flag. When self-report and bio-markers diverge — early-stage prevention at the individual level.
  • Team wellbeing index. Wellbeing markers with history, for the teams.
Sport psychologist dashboard with topic map and editing topic panel
For the coach
  • Current team mood & tiredness. Overall, at team and individual level.
  • Team wellbeing index. Bio-markers aggregated at team level, with history, to better tailor training to events, season and more.
Coach view dashboard showing team mood and fatigue signal
Pillar 2 · Community

A tailored circle of close friends.

Each athlete's support system looks different — inside or outside the team. Shared milestones, normalised low days, encouragement from friends and reminders of past achievements. When you share something on Safespace, or support a friend, their Safespace brings that support back to them on the low days.

Community support group dashboard

Built for
organisations that raise
healthy champions.

We partner with sport organisations to raise their athletes' performance and bring mental wellbeing support to every athlete in their care — including the ones who don't get personal coaches or 24/7 attention today.

"We don't have resources to support each single youth athlete." Federation feedback
"Even top athletes don't have coaches 24/7, or on the road." Olympic committee feedback

Federations & Olympic Committees

Organisations responsible for whole athlete cohorts — from youth to elite — with a mission to foster wellbeing through sport.

Sponsor Brands

Brands committed to athlete wellbeing as part of long-term partnerships, and to nurturing their growing youth athletes.

Clubs

Clubs scaling mental support to every athlete in their care, building thriving communities.

Target users

Pro athletes

On the road · data-driven insights

Pro athletes often lack year-round support, and many report feeling alone with the mental side of their sport. Safespace gives them a private space to reflect and receive reliable advice — on the road and between sessions — while their coaches and sport psychologists act on the data insights. Combined with physical performance data, those insights power tailored routines and next-level performance protocols.

Youth & academies

High potential · high dropout

The most fragile stretch of an athletic career — many youth athletes drop out after years of formation. We help federations spot warning signs early, safeguard their investment, and help young athletes feel less alone on their path.

Adaptive & neurodiverse

Often overlooked segment

Built accessibility-first. The app and the AI are designed to include athletes who are rarely served by standard mental health tools — whether through tailored content knowledge or through safeguards and structures tuned to how a neurodiverse brain works.

Social impact communities

Athletes and social-impact missions

The work we do to support elite athletes extends to the social-impact communities our clients support — from local sport centres to low-income countries.

What we have learned from athletes
in our ongoing survey.

These numbers are why we're building Safespace.

Ongoing · n = 82 athletes
65%
feel alone with the mental side of their sport.
2 out of 3
believe their issues aren't serious enough — or fear being seen as weak for reaching out.
40%
already use generic AI chatbots to discuss athletic-related issues.
Self-reported, anonymized. Latest snapshot — May 2026. Full methodology available on request.

Embedded in the
research, innovation
and tech ecosystem.

CHF 150k
in grants & awards
SNF · Innosuisse · Talent Kick · Trilogos Foundation · Karger Publishers · Innosuisse Coaching
CHF 250k+
in computing credits
SwissAI · Google · Azure · Nvidia

Experts and builders.

A team spanning behavioral and data science, accessibility, responsible AI, psychology and sport.

Founders · Multidisciplinary, driven
Matteo Pinna

Matteo Pinna, PhD

CEO · Behavioral & data science
ETH Zürich

Matteo Pinna, PhD
CEO · Behavioral & data science

Spun Safespace out of his PhD at ETH Zürich in behavioral and data science. His personal story of late-diagnosed neurodivergence drives him every day to improve mental wellbeing support. His research has been published in leading journals — including the Journal of Public Economics, Political Analysis, JMIR Formative Research and Nature's Scientific Reports — and featured by The Atlantic, The New York Times, Washington Post, Vox and MSNBC. His statistical programs are used by more than 200,000 people as of June 2026. Off the clock, Matteo climbs rock, mountaineers and snowboards.

Oriane Pierrès

Oriane Pierrès, PhD

Human-AI UX & accessibility
University of Zurich

Oriane Pierrès, PhD
Human-AI UX & accessibility

An interdisciplinary postdoctoral researcher at the University of Zurich working across AI in education, digital accessibility, disability studies, AI ethics and human-computer interaction. At Safespace she pairs peer support with responsible AI to close the gaps in existing mental-health ecosystems — centering minoritised and underserved communities and bridging research and implementation, so AI assistants are designed inclusively in higher education and high-performance sport alike. Published in venues including IEEE Access, Education and Information Technologies, Learned Publishing and the AAAI/ACM Conference on AI, Ethics & Society.

Prof Dr Dr Nala

Prof Dr Dr Nala

CFluffO
Chief Fluffiness Officer

Prof Dr Dr Nala
CFluffO · Chief Fluffiness Officer

Holds two honorary degrees and lectures on techniques for high-output fluffiness — for maximum employment performance and wellbeing. In her free time she enjoys bathing in shallow water, sniffing things, and showing love by making sure no trace of food is ever left on your fingers.

Advisors · Believing in Safespace since the start
Petra Klingler

Petra Klingler

Swiss Olympian
Bouldering World Champion

Petra Klingler
Athlete advisor

Swiss Olympian, rock & ice climber and Bouldering World Champion. Brings the elite-athlete perspective and connects Safespace to the high-performance athlete network. Petra raised the mental challenges athletes face early on, advocating for a real support system. In her free time she boulders, skis, cooks and bakes.

Prof Elliott Ash

Prof Elliott Ash

Scientific advisor
ETH Zürich · ETH AI Center

Prof Elliott Ash
Scientific advisor

Professor at ETH Zürich and the ETH AI Center. Advises on scientific methodology — causal inference, machine learning for social impact and responsible AI development. In his free time he plays the drums, spends time with his kids and digs into the latest AI-frontier discoveries.

Timon Elmer

Timon Elmer, PhD

Psychology advisor
University of Zurich

Timon Elmer, PhD
Psychology advisor

PhD in psychology at the University of Zurich. Advises on psychological interventions and supports rigorous impact studies of Safespace's technology — particularly chatbot-based interventions and social-network effects on wellbeing. In his free time he enjoys the outdoors and music.

Let's talk.

Federation, academy or sponsor brand — we'd love to help you support your athletes.

info@safespaceresearch.com
Zürich, Switzerland

Stay in the loop.

We'll send you one email when the app is ready — with an access code to use it for free. Then we'll delete the email and your address from our database.

We're doing our best to create a safe, private and helpful platform. We'll ping you when it's ready.