Whether it's giving up vices, improving your health or finally launching that big personal project, here are 10 startups with tech that can help.
As we roll into 2026, many of us will have made new year’s resolutions for this year, and some of us will no doubt be breaking them already. But not so fast! There are a wealth of emerging startups looking to help you take control of your life with new business models and technologies.
Here are 10 of the most promising, from an app that uses artificial intelligence to compile your life story, to the operator of a high-tech tattoo removal service, to a social fitness platform where you make friends as you get into shape. Whatever your aims are, there’s a startup that can push you to achieve them.
Quit smoking
Ditch
Cardiff, UK
Founded: 2020
Funding to date: $4.2m
While smoking rates have fallen across the developed world in recent years, nicotine addiction has been given a shot in the arm by vaping. Founded in Canada before moving to the UK, Ditch has built a digital system that combines hardware and software to help users give up both.
The company’s DitchPen medical inhaler provides nicotine replacement therapy (NRT) while its mobile app provides a personalised and automated cessation programme designed to gradually wean users off nicotine. The idea is to avoid the quick-release rush of existing NRT systems and offer a method that looks to combat psychological triggers that could cause a relapse.
Clinical research organisation Meditrial and healthcare provider Symphony Care Network, an existing backer, were both among the investors in a C$3.25m ($2.4m) seed round in 2023 that boosted Ditch’s overall funding to $4.2m.
Writing your autobiography
Elefantia
Saint-Melo, France
Founded: 2024
Funding to date: $1.2m
Who among us hasn’t decided at some point that this would be the year we would keep a journal, only for those good intentions to evaporate because we don’t have the time? Well, a French startup called Elefantia wants to use generative AI to streamline the process by allowing people to compile their life stories.
Elefantia’s platform asks users questions they can answer either orally or through writing, using a generative AI-based writing assistant to convert those answers into text that users can add their own photos to, creating a record of their life that can be reproduced in book form.
The startup closed a seed round led by venture capital fund OneRagtime at €1.1m ($1.2m) in November with backing from BPIfrance and a range of angel investors, as it looks to build what it calls an intergenerational memory app.
Learn a new language
Inspired AI
Singapore
Founded: 2023
Funding to date: $3.5m
Language learning apps saw significant growth in the 2010’s as companies like Duolingo and Rosetta Stone emerged with twists like gamification or speech recognition technology. But results have largely varied without the conversational opportunities afforded by live classes.
Singaporean startup Inspired AI is aiming to bring that element to digital learning through an app called TalkMe. It uses generative AI to enable learners to practice through conversation with a virtual companion who can guide and correct them outside of social situations that could provoke nervousness.
The company secured $3.5m from investors including Seas Capital, Jinqiu Capital and GSR Ventures in a late 2024 angel round, and by September last year it had grown its user base 1,000% year on year, in the process doubling its revenue in the three months prior.
Get into shape
Sweatpals
Austin, Texas, USA
Founded: 2023
Funding to date: $17.2m
Every January, the gyms are packed with people looking to get into shape for the new year, but they can prove to be a solitary experience for those who don’t have a social group to go with.
Sweatpals wants to bring socialising and fitness together with an online marketplace for fitness experiences – like a Meetup for training – while gyms and wellness studios can form social communities around their offerings. It was present in some two dozen American cities as of late 2025, with big expansion plans for this year.
Venture firms Patron and Andreesen Horowitz (through its A16z Speedrun fund) co-led a $12m seed round for Sweatpals in October last year with HartBeat Ventures, the VC fund formed by actor and comedian Kevin Hart, taking its total funding past $17m.
Expand your social circle
Plots
Los Angeles, California, USA
Founded: 2022
Funding to date: Undisclosed
You don’t need to be a fitness freak to make new friends in 2026, however. Plots, which counts Tinder’s founding CTO among its co-founders, has built an online platform where users can discover local social events and meet up with each other in real life.
The idea is that users can build a social network through the app, find events and then invite people to them, meeting new friends and expanding their social circle in real life. Plots has signed up some 1,000 event hosts and its events have attracted upwards of 300,000 attendees.
Best Nights VC, the corporate venture arm of alcoholic beverage producer Mast-Jägermeister, joined A16z Speedrun to invest an undisclosed amount in Plots in January 2025. The startup’s other backers include pre-seed-focused Ethos Fund.
Find that special someone
Keeper
New York City, New York, USA
Founded: 2022
Funding to date: $4m
Online dating was fresh and new once, but how many times have you heard some variation on the phrase ‘The apps are a disaster area’ in the past five years? Well, Keeper is trying a new approach to online dating with a fully automated matchmaking app.
Every app uses some variation of an AI algorithm but Keeper’s does all the work, searching for suitable matches, ranking and proposing matches based on preferences, personality and values that are then signed off on by a human matchmaker. Hey, if you’re still single, it’s not like your approach has worked so far, right?
Keeper closed a $4m pre-seed round in late 2024 that was co-led by Lightbank and Lakehouse Ventures and backed by the likes of Champion Hill Ventures and Goodwater Capital, and which was disclosed last month.
Fix up your home
Beams
London, UK
Founded: 2022
Funding to date: $13.3m
If everything goes well and you find someone to settle down with – or if you just want somewhere a bit nicer to yourself – it’s time for home renovation. But how do you decide for sure what you want and find the right people to do the work? Beams is applying advanced software to the problem.
Beams’ online platform helps users find the right builders and designers and provides 3D scanning and laser technology to create visualisations of prospective jobs. It also offers a pricing engine that uses data from thousands of past projects to estimate costs and timelines.
The UK-based company’s overall funding stood at just over $13m as of January last year, when it raised $9m in a series A round featuring Borusan Ventures, the early-stage investment arm of industrial conglomerate Borusan, with the cash earmarked for European expansion.
Improve your finances
WeMoney
Sydney, Australia
Founded: 2020
Funding to date: $16m
Whatever your goals in life are, organising finances needs to be first on the agenda, so that you can actually fulfil those goals. WeMoney is the creator of a social financial wellness app designed to help users track spending and pay off debt more quickly.
Users can integrate their financial accounts with the app to manage their cash, set goals and form budgets. It also helps users switch accounts if more beneficial options are available, and WeMoney has an ongoing partnership with Google’s AI platform, Gemini.
The company has so far raised approximately $16m in funding, $7.7m of which came in an April 2025 series A round featuring Mastercard. The bulk of that capital was put into research and development as WeMoney looked to beef up its technology.
Improve your mental health
Jimini Health
New York, New York, USA
Founded: 2023
Funding to date: $8m
The use of AI in digital therapy has generated mixed results so far but Jimini Health has developed a mental health offering that combines human therapists with AI tools that provide support between sessions.
The startup’s therapy programmes are led by human therapists and augmented by Sage, an AI assistant that engages with patients and gives them prompts and exercises based on their therapeutic goals. The aim is for the achievements made in live therapy sessions to be solidified afterwards.
Jimini launched in late 2024 with an $8m pre-seed round that included SCB 10X, the technology investment arm of financial services firm Siam Commercial Bank. Other backers include Zetta Venture Partners, LionBird, PsyMed Ventures, BoxGroup and Arkitekt Ventures.
Finally getting rid of that tattoo
Ray Studios
Paris, France
Founded: 2021
Funding to date: $19.6m
It seemed like a good – no, a great idea at the time. But now, a few years on, you’re thinking better of that tattoo and would like to get it removed. But how can you guarantee it gets done properly? Ray Studios has developed a tattoo removal technique it claims is as advanced as any on the market.
Ray’s Picoway laser removal system makes evidence of tattoos virtually undetectable, and that’s part of a service that includes advanced medical skin analysis, post-appointment treatment and removal monitoring via a dedicated app. It is currently available in 20 centres across Western and Southern European cities.
Factory Capital and Nickleby Capital co-led a $12m round for Ray last month that boosted its overall funding to nearly $20m. That cash will support an expansion drive across Europe for the France-based company, which aims to double the number of studios it runs by the end of next year.
See all the recent corporate-backed startup funding rounds in the CVC Funding Round Database.
