Atlanta HealthTech Startup SayWell Helps Caregivers Between Therapy Sessions
ATLANTA, September 21 (Hypepotamus) - Shivani Kulkarni says she doesn’t start with a pitch to her potential customers at places like speech and behavioral therapy clinics.
“I ask one question: who owns caregiver support between sessions?,” she told Hypepotamus.
In Kulkarni’s experience, healthcare providers don’t have a good answer. That leaves a huge gap in the hours and days between sessions.
Tech Square Ventures is an Atlanta-based firm investing in enterprise (B2B) and marketplace technology companies.
“There isn't structured support during those other 167 hours—let alone a consistent way to understand what happened at home, measure progress, and support the caregiver through it. Intent isn't infrastructure,” she added.
Kulkarni, who previously worked as the VP of Product at CoreCard Software in Metro Atlanta, lived this reality as a mother. After a parent gets a diagnosis, like ADHD, for a child, they can start going to regular therapy sessions. But in between? Those parents and kids just don’t have the support they need.
That infrastructure is exactly what Kulkarni is building with SayWell, a mental healthcare platform providing in-between session care and help for caregivers.
How SayWell Works
SayWell isn’t about giving parents more advice. For Kulkarni, it is about translating a provider’s goal for a patient and turning it into language a caregiver can use to make positive changes in ordinary or specific moments when a therapist is not around.
In its early stages, the platform is focused on pediatric and adolescent care.
The platform works on a Do, Say, Why model, which Kulkarni said gives caregivers “what to do, what to say, and why it matters.”
“Not because anyone is going to parent perfectly. The goal isn't perfection. It's being consistently good enough that when we get it wrong—and we will—there's room for repair.”
The SayWell platform uses a B2B model.
“Clinics are our entry point because they hold the clinical authority, and our commercial model is based on the number of active families they support through SayWell,” Kulkarni explained. “Who ultimately pays—whether that's the clinic directly, through reimbursement pathways, or eventually through broader payer relationships—is something we're actively building toward.
From FinTech To HealthTech
Kulkarni said her years in the payments and finance space impacted how she thinks about building SayWell.
“Payments taught me that the best infrastructure is simple to touch and complex underneath. The user shouldn't have to understand everything happening behind the scenes—they should just feel that it works,” she told Hypepotamus. “It also taught me how to build: validate before you scale, instrument what matters, and never confuse more features with more value. In payments, trust, data integrity, and frictionless execution are non-negotiable. I bring that same discipline to SayWell.”
Maija Ehlinger
What’s Next For SayWell
For Kulkarni, SayWell is about helping parents navigate complexities of caregiving.
“I think parenting today has an interesting contradiction. We have more awareness than ever that how we show up—and the environments we create—help shape a child's mindset and the blueprint they carry forward. But awareness without knowing what to do next creates its own cognitive load and guilt. The intention is there. The infrastructure isn't.”
To grow, Kulkarni brought on a clinical advisor, a move she said was non-negotiable. She also worked with dedicated partners and a lean team with engineering, clinical, and operational expertise. She added that her eleven-year-old, who inspired SayWell, has appointed himself CMO.
“My operating principle is simple: human is the authority; AI is the instrument. The clinician originates the intent, and SayWell makes it usable every day. That principle shapes both the product and how we're building the company.”
Moving through the rest of the year, Kulkarni said SayWell is focused on bringing on clinical partners and building towards deeper EHR integration.
“The ultimate vision is much bigger than therapy. I see SayWell as behavioral infrastructure—a way to translate expert intent into the repeated, everyday actions where behavior actually changes,” she added. “Ultimately, I want expert guidance to reach people where life actually happens—and make those hundreds of moments between appointments visible, actionable, and measurable.”
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