Consumer health & wellness · Relationship coaching
Maia
A mobile app that chats and talks with couples together, pitched as an always on stand in for inaccessible couples therapy. Built by two Y Combinator alumni in San Francisco, it has no clinical trial, FDA record or published efficacy study behind it.
The third wheel
Open the app and there is no waiting room, no intake form, no sliding scale fee. A couple types or talks to Maia together, on a phone, whenever a fight starts or a Tuesday night gets quiet. The app answers back in text or a synthesized voice, asks a follow up question, and suggests a date idea or a conflict resolution exercise.
Claire Wiley introduced the product to a Slack community for AI builders in October 2023 in blunt terms: Maia is “your AI Relationship Assistant, designed to be the third-wheel you’d actually want to invite to your relationship.” The pitch has not changed much since. Current app store listings describe text chat, voice guided sessions, daily goals, quizzes, games, date ideas and what the company calls conflict reflection, all aimed at couples rather than individuals.
The problem, as the company frames it
Maia’s own Y Combinator launch post lays out the case: traditional couples therapy is “inaccessible and stigmatized,” couple apps mostly hand out static content that is not personalized, and, in the company’s words, “on average, it takes a couple 6 years of being unhappy before seeking help.” The same post cites divorce rates above 50 percent. Neither figure is sourced in the post, and no independent citation for either number turned up in this research, so both should be read as claims the company is making about the market, not as verified statistics.
Whatever the exact numbers, the underlying gap is real enough that a small industry of AI relationship apps has formed around it, and Maia is one of several. An independent comparison site that reviews competitors in the category, Adoree AI, frames Maia as the smaller, newer, AI first entrant going up against older, therapist curated apps such as Paired.
Founders
Maia was founded by Claire Wiley and Ralph Ma, according to Y Combinator’s company page, the AI Expert Network profile of the company, and FounderTrace’s founder listing. Wiley is CEO. The AI Expert Network profile, the only source found with founder background detail, describes Wiley developing the idea while pursuing an MBA at Wharton and running a couples coaching program, and describes Ma as a former Google research scientist who joined her to build the technology. That detail comes from a single secondary source and was not independently corroborated in SEC, university or employer records during this research, so it is presented as reported rather than confirmed.
What is corroborated, in the company’s own words, is the personal motivation. The Y Combinator launch post says the founders both “grown up in first-generation divorced households and navigated the ups and downs of” their own relationships, and that this is why they “recognized the universal need for a proactive approach to relationship health.”
Timeline
App store review dates and the Slack introduction put a working version of Maia in front of users by at least October and November 2023, months before Y Combinator’s Winter 2024 batch would have started. PitchBook’s deal log shows two 2024 investments on consecutive dates: an early stage VC investment from North South Ventures effective April 1, 2024, and a Y Combinator accelerator deal of $500,000 dated April 4, 2024. Company data aggregator Extruct AI lists Maia as pre-seed stage with the same two investors and no lead investor specified.
Since then, growth has been incremental rather than explosive. As of this research, Maia’s Google Play listing shows 10,000-plus downloads and 178 reviews, last updated August 17, 2026. A January 2026 competitor comparison from Adoree AI put the app’s App Store rating at 4.57 out of 5 across roughly 170 ratings, a small sample it explicitly flags as such. There is no announced Series A, no named later round, and no press coverage of a funding milestone found in this research.
What is proven, and what is still claimed
| Evidence | What the record shows | Source type |
|---|---|---|
| App Store listing | Live iOS app “Maia: 24/7 Couples Support,” seller of record Our Maia, Co., free download with Premium in-app purchases of $24.99 and $200, minimum age rating 13+. Terms of use separately set an 18+ minimum, per an independent review. | Public record |
| Google Play listing | “Maia: AI for Couples,” 10,000+ installs, 178 reviews, developer listed as Our Maia, Co. at 2261 Market St Pmb 10234, San Francisco, CA 94114-1612. | Public record |
| Expert backing claim | Company markets Maia as “expert-backed” and “trained by relationship experts,” quoting Dr. Marisa T. Cohen, PhD, LMFT, by name in its launch materials. No published paper, clinical study or named training methodology was found. | Company-stated |
| Therapy claim versus disclosure | Marketing leans on words like therapy adjacent and 24/7 support, but an independent product review states plainly that the company itself “says AI is not a licensed couples therapist and cannot do the long-term, contextual and accountable work of a trained human.” | Marketing vs. disclosure |
| Clinical or efficacy evidence | No FDA clearance, registered clinical trial, or peer reviewed study tied to Maia or Our Maia, Co. was found in FDA or ClinicalTrials.gov records searched for this profile. | Not found |
| Institutional funding | PitchBook logs a $500,000 Y Combinator accelerator deal and a separate, undisclosed North South Ventures investment, both dated April 2024. | Data aggregator |
| SEC Form D | No filing under Maia, Our Maia, or Our Maia, Co. was found in SEC EDGAR company search as of September 25, 2026. | Not found |
| Founding date | Company data and Extruct AI say 2023; PitchBook lists 2022; a competitor comparison site lists January 2024. An archived Slack post from founder Claire Wiley introducing the product is dated October 16, 2023. | Sources disagree |
Read plainly: Maia is a real, actively maintained consumer app with a modest but growing user base and two named, on record backers. The parts of its pitch that sound clinical, expert backed, therapy adjacent, trained by relationship experts, rest on a named expert’s endorsement rather than a study, and the company’s own materials, as summarized by an independent reviewer, concede that Maia is not a substitute for a licensed therapist. Basic facts that are normally settled, like the founding year, are not consistent across the sources that report them.
What to watch
- Whether Maia publishes any efficacy data, a training methodology for its expert backed claim, or a named clinical advisor beyond a single quoted expert.
- An updated privacy policy. An independent review found Maia’s public privacy policy still dated August 2023 and its terms dated October 2023, even as the app itself keeps shipping updates, and found that policy permits broad data sharing and targeted advertising around highly sensitive relationship and sexual content.
- Any SEC Form D or press announcement that would confirm the size of the North South Ventures investment, or a later round.
- Continued growth in downloads and ratings beyond the roughly 170 App Store ratings and 10,000-plus Android installs on record as of this research.
In their words
“I’m Claire, the founder of Maia, your AI Relationship Assistant, designed to be the third-wheel you’d actually want to invite to your relationship!”
Claire Wiley, founder, Cerebral Valley Slack, Oct 2023 · Community post
“On average, it takes a couple 6 years of being unhappy before seeking help.”
Maia launch post, Y Combinator, 2024 · Company-stated
“Having both grown up in first-generation divorced households and navigated the ups and downs of our own relationships, we recognized the universal need for a proactive approach to relationship health.”
Maia launch post, Y Combinator, 2024 · Company-stated
“Maia is a powerful tool that provides psychoeducation about relationships, normalizes the experiences we have and challenges we face, as well as prompts users to reflect on their lived experiences, values, and goals, thereby encouraging a greater level of self-awareness.”
Dr. Marisa T. Cohen, PhD, LMFT, relationship expert, quoted in Maia’s Y Combinator launch post · Company-stated
“I am beyond grateful I came across it. I’ve been recommending it to friends along the way as it’s helped immensely as a support outlet but also grow my thoughts when I fall narrow minded from an emotional state.”
User “K.,” quoted in Maia’s Y Combinator launch post · Company-stated
“The company itself says AI is not a licensed couples therapist and cannot do the long-term, contextual and accountable work of a trained human.”
The Rundown AI, independent product review, Aug 31, 2026 · Independent
“Maia is newer, AI-first, and small. Paired is older, therapist-curated, and proven.”
Adoree AI, competitor comparison page, 2026 · Independent
Related companies
Sources
- CompanyMaia company page
- CompanyLaunch YC: Maia, Transforming relationships using AI
- CompanyMaia homepage and testimonials
- Public recordMaia: 24/7 Couples Support, App Store listing
- Public recordMaia: AI for Couples, Google Play listing and reviews
- IndependentMaia Couples App Review: Pricing, Privacy & Safety
- IndependentMaia vs Paired comparison
- IndependentMaia: AI Relationship App that Keeps Couples Together
- IndependentHey everyone, I’m Claire, the founder of ourmaia.com
- Data aggregatorMaia company profile
- Data aggregatorMaia (Social/Platform Software) company profile
- Data aggregatorMaia funding profile
- Public recordMaia company page
- Not foundSEC EDGAR company search, “maia,” Form D filings
Profile researched and written by Healthcare Discovery. Last updated September 29, 2026.
