Digital mental health · OCD care
Mango Health
A Y Combinator startup that set out in 2023 to route primary care patients to therapists, then rebranded around an AI-guided program for obsessive-compulsive disorder. Y Combinator now lists the company as Inactive.
Two pitches, one company
In March 2024, Mango Health launched out of Y Combinator’s Winter 2024 batch with a pitch about paperwork, not chatbots. “We take advantage of recent regulation changes that allow PCPs to get reimbursed for ensuring their patients get therapy.” The team said it would handle scheduling, therapist matching, telehealth visits, care tracking and insurance claims for both therapists and primary care practices, and it offered $30 to anyone who connected them with a primary care physician willing to talk.
“There may be a therapist shortage, but mental health professionals still struggle to find patients and contract with insurance companies,” the launch post read. The company said it had interviewed and shadowed more than 160 primary care physicians and psychotherapists before building the product, and it pointed people to a separate site, try-mango.com, for more detail.
By the time this profile was researched in September 2026, the company’s own listing had changed. Y Combinator’s current company page, and the LinkedIn page for the business, both describe Mango Health as “AI Therapy for OCD,” a narrower, AI-first product aimed at a single condition rather than a referral network spanning general anxiety, depression and other diagnoses. Which version shipped, and when the switch happened, is not documented in any source found for this profile.
The problem it named
“Mango Health is building the market-leading AI Guide for OCD. OCD is often hidden in plain sight, with research showing it takes an average of 12 years to diagnose, and nearly 2% of the world population affected.” That is the company’s own framing, taken from its Y Combinator listing, and it sets up the later pitch: a focus on Exposure and Response Prevention, the therapy method considered the clinical gold standard for OCD, delivered through what the company called “24/7 support, and countless AI-guided lessons” at a fraction of the cost of traditional treatment.
The earlier, primary-care-facing version of the business described the same underlying gap from a different angle. A Medium writeup from February 2024 put it this way: “A Y Combinator-backed startup founded by Jamison Mercurio and Zachary Gittelman, Mango Health, aims to make mental health more accessible to patients everywhere by connecting a private network of therapists with primary care practices.” At that stage, the article said, the company’s therapist network covered general anxiety, depression and life stressors, with plans to add ADHD, OCD and substance use disorder specialists later. If that expansion is what eventually became the OCD-only product, no source confirms it directly.
Founders
Zachary Gittelman is a Michigan and Cornell computer science graduate who, according to his own bio on the Y Combinator site, worked on insurance billing integration at Medly, scheduling automation at Mount Sinai and a medical supplies marketplace at Tomorrow Health before co-founding Mango Health as CTO. Jamison Mercurio, described in the same launch material as a Princeton computer science graduate and a former Meta engineer who worked on user-facing growth projects, was the other co-founder.
Y Combinator’s current listing labels both of them “Former Founders,” language the platform uses for people no longer active at a company it has funded. Zachary Gittelman’s LinkedIn profile, as saved for this profile, carries the page title carries the page title titled “Zachary Gittelman - Lumbridge Labs”, suggestingldquo;Zachary Gittelman - Lumbridge Labscarries the page title titled “Zachary Gittelman - Lumbridge Labs”, suggestingrdquo;, suggesting he has since moved to a different company. No public source lists a current role for Jamison Mercurio.
What became of it
Two of the company’s own web addresses point away from it now. The domain the company told users to visit in its launch post, try-mango.com, no longer hosts anything related to mental health; the copy saved for this profile in mid-2026 was for an online casino. The company’s primary domain, themangohealth.com, listed in the company’s own records as its website, returned a Chinese agricultural university’s news page when checked for this profile, not a Mango Health product. Neither domain change is announced or explained anywhere in the sources gathered here; both are simply consistent with a company Y Combinator already marks Inactive.
An aggregator profile, StartupSeeker, separately describes the AI-guide version of the product in more detail than any other source found: a conversational interface for OCD support, step-by-step ERP sessions, an “OCD score” for tracking progress, and content the aggregator says was “developed in consultation with over 20 OCD specialists and psychologists.” No specialists are named, and no independent source corroborates the number or the consultation itself.
What is proven, and what is still claimed
| Evidence | What the record shows | Source type |
|---|---|---|
| YC batch and status | Winter 2024 batch (W24). Both the Y Combinator and Work at a Startup listings mark the company Inactive as of this profile’s research date. | Independent |
| Product description, then and now | The March 2024 launch post describes a primary care to therapist referral and billing service across several conditions. The company’s current YC and LinkedIn listings instead describe an AI-only OCD product. No source explains the transition. | Differs across listings |
| Clinical evidence | No FDA clearance, no registered clinical trial, and no PubMed-indexed paper tied to the company or an OCD product of this name found as of Sep 25, 2026. | Not found |
| Clinician involvement, AI product | Content described as developed “in consultation with over 20 OCD specialists and psychologists,” per an aggregator profile. No names, no primary source. | Company-stated |
| Named therapists, referral model | Three therapists named in independent reporting, Nicole Crain, Ronnie Lee and Kristen Hoskins, described as PSYPACT-credentialed and licensed in nearly 40 states. | Independent |
| Funding on record | No SEC Form D under the company’s name found in EDGAR or in this profile’s records. One aggregator lists “$500K raised to date” with its own source field marked unavailable. | Not found |
| Founder status | Y Combinator labels both founders “Former Founders.” Zachary Gittelman’s saved LinkedIn page title places him at a different company, Lumbridge Labs. | Independent |
Read plainly: almost everything checkable about Mango Health points to a company that started, pivoted once in public view, and stopped. There is no FDA record to check because the product was never a regulated device. There is no trial because none was registered. There is no funding filing because, as far as public records show, none was made. What is left is a Y Combinator listing marked Inactive, a founder who appears to have moved on, and two web addresses that now lead somewhere else entirely.
What to watch
- Whether Jamison Mercurio or Zachary Gittelman resurface at a new health startup, which would confirm Mango Health has fully wound down rather than paused.
- Any SEC Form D that might still be filed retroactively, or an EDGAR entry under a variant name, which would clarify how the company was funded.
- Whether the OCD-specific product ever shipped to users, or whether the AI Guide for OCD description was a repositioning that never launched before the company went inactive.
In their words
“Mango Health is building the market-leading AI Guide for OCD.”
Mango Health company listing, Y Combinator, accessed Sep 25, 2026 · Company-stated
“OCD is often hidden in plain sight, with research showing it takes an average of 12 years to diagnose, and nearly 2% of the world population affected.”
Mango Health company listing, Y Combinator, accessed Sep 25, 2026 · Company-stated
“We take advantage of recent regulation changes that allow PCPs to get reimbursed for ensuring their patients get therapy.”
Mango Health launch post, Y Combinator, Mar 2024 · Company-stated
“A Y Combinator-backed startup founded by Jamison Mercurio and Zachary Gittelman, Mango Health, aims to make mental health more accessible to patients everywhere by connecting a private network of therapists with primary care practices.”
Digger Insights, Medium, Feb 15, 2024 · Independent
“MH’s therapists, which at the moment include Nicole Crain, Ronnie Lee, and Kristen Hoskins, have PSYPACT credentials that make them licensed therapists in nearly 40 states.”
Digger Insights, Medium, Feb 15, 2024 · Independent
“Mango Health (YC W24) helps physicians get paid for sending their patients to therapy.”
Logan Underwood, LinkedIn post on the Y Combinator company page, Mar 15, 2024 · Independent
Related companies
Sources
- IndependentMango Health: AI Therapy for OCD, company listing
- IndependentMango Health company listing, Work at a Startup mirror
- IndependentMango Health Makes Mental Health Service More Affordable and Accessible
- IndependentLaunch YC: Mango Health, Bridging primary care and mental health
- CompanyMango Health company page
- IndependentMango Health company profile
- IndependentMango Health company profile, unrelated 2012 medication adherence company
- IndependentZachary Gittelman profile page
- Not foundthemangohealth.com, company website no longer showing the product
- Not foundtry-mango.com, launch-era site no longer showing the product
Profile researched and written by Healthcare Discovery. Last updated September 29, 2026.
