Selfapy

Overview
Selfapy GmbH is a Berlin digital-therapeutics company founded in 2016 by Nora Blum, Katrin Bermbach and Farina Schurzfeld. It develops CE-marked online courses built on cognitive behavioural therapy and listed as Digitale Gesundheitsanwendungen (DiGA) by Germany's Federal Institute for Drugs and Medical Devices (BfArM), so clinicians can prescribe them and statutory health insurance covers the cost. On 13 March 2025 MEDICE Health Family acquired Selfapy GmbH; SHS Capital, Think.Health Ventures, IBB Ventures and High-Tech Gruenderfonds sold their shares and the price was not disclosed. The company still trades under its own name, with Adham Kassab as CEO. Directory data dated 29 August 2026 shows four Selfapy products, all recorded as permanently listed.

Why this entity matters
Selfapy is a clean test case for the DiGA pathway, which is why it recurs in Startuprad.io's digital-health coverage. Germany's Digitale-Versorgung-Gesetz, in force from December 2019, created a route in which software can be prescribed and reimbursed by statutory health insurance: provisionally while evidence is gathered, permanently once BfArM accepts proof of positive care effects. Many listed applications never clear the second hurdle; all four Selfapy products did, the first in December 2020 and the last in January 2023. At the transaction the company stated it accounted for 20 percent of all permanently listed mental-health DiGA, a figure from the seller's release and not independently verified. Permanent listing followed by a trade sale to a pharmaceutical incumbent is the pattern German digital-health founders want to replicate.

Company history and product
Selfapy was founded in Berlin in 2016 to deliver guideline-based, non-pharmacological therapy programmes as software. The products are online courses delivered through an app and a web application, divided into lessons using audio, video, text and exercises, with a psychological contact monitoring progress. Four are listed in the BfArM DiGA directory: depression since 16 December 2020 for ICD-10 codes F32.0, F32.1, F33.0 and F33.1 at EUR 217.18 per 90-day prescription; generalised anxiety disorder since 19 June 2021 for F41.1 at EUR 228.50; bulimia nervosa and binge-eating disorder since 5 January 2023 at EUR 232.00 each. All four are Class I devices under the EU Medical Device Regulation, free to the patient. The depression entry, last amended by BfArM on 18 February 2026, records a 90-day prescription period, approval for adults aged 18 and over, availability on iOS, Android and web, and content in German, English, French, Italian, Polish, Russian and Turkish. The seller's release additionally lists chronic pain among the conditions Selfapy's programmes address. Reported funding varies by source: a seven-figure round announced by High-Tech Gruenderfonds in 2017, EUR 6 million reported by FinSMEs in February 2020 and roughly USD 14 million across five rounds listed by Tracxn, none corroborated.

Role in the DACH startup and technology ecosystem
Selfapy operates inside the German statutory-health-insurance system, which makes it a DACH-specific business rather than a generic health app. The DiGA framework rests on the Digitale-Versorgung-Gesetz and the DiGAV ordinance, with the product definition in Section 33a and the fast-track procedure in Section 139e of Social Code Book V; BfArM assesses a complete application within three months, extendable by up to three further months, and a listed product becomes prescribable by physicians and psychotherapists and reimbursable for the roughly 73 million people in statutory cover. Operational from 2020, it was the first reimbursement route of its kind in Europe, and economics depend on listing status rather than consumer subscriptions. The market it created is small but growing: the GKV-Spitzenverband's DiGA report for 2025 records 74 applications listed since inception, 58 still in the catalogue at the end of 2025, about 1.6 million prescriptions taken up since 2020 of which some 690,000 fell in 2025 alone, and cumulative statutory spending of roughly EUR 401 million, rising from EUR 64 million in 2023 to EUR 106 million in 2024 and EUR 171 million in 2025. Selfapy is one of a small group of German companies to have carried products through to permanent listing. The March 2025 acquisition by MEDICE, a family-owned pharmaceutical manufacturer in Iserlohn and Ringelheim, shows the consolidation now running through the segment, with incumbents adding prescribable digital products to drug portfolios.

Selected relationships and affiliations
Founders: Nora Blum, Katrin Bermbach, Farina Schurzfeld (2016). CEO at the 2025 transaction: Adham Kassab. Acquirer: MEDICE Health Family, a third-generation family business led by Dr Katja Puetter-Ammer and Dr Richard Ammer, described in its own release as the European market leader in ADHD therapy and organised around pharmaceutical, digital and nutrition pillars. Selling investors: SHS Capital, Think.Health Ventures, IBB Ventures, High-Tech Gruenderfonds. SHS Capital, a Tuebingen healthcare investor founded in 1993, was represented on Selfapy's advisory board by partner Dr Cornelius Maas, its long-standing chairman. Regulator: BfArM; the reimbursement counterparties are the statutory health insurance funds. DiGA peers in Startuprad.io coverage: Kranus Health, edupression.com.

Startuprad.io relevance
Selfapy sits in the Startuprad.io graph as a founder-interview guest and as the reference point for the DiGA reimbursement pathway. Four tagged posts connect to it: the Selfapy founder interview and three adjacent digital-therapeutics interviews on the same route. It is the worked example a piece can point to for the German prescription-software regime end to end, from fast-track application through permanent listing to a strategic exit.

Public source context
Sources include the SHS Capital release of 13 March 2025 https://www.shs-capital.eu/healthcare-specialist-shs-capital-together-with-its-co-investors-sells-selfapy-gmbh-to-medice-the-health-family/ , the DiGA directory entry https://www.diga-verzeichnis.de/en/diga/selfapys-online-kurs-bei-depression , the BfArM directory https://diga.bfarm.de/de/verzeichnis/00876 , BfArM on the DiGA framework https://www.bfarm.de/EN/Medical-devices/Tasks/DiGA-and-DiPA/Digital-Health-Applications/Interesting-facts/_artikel.html , the GKV-Spitzenverband DiGA report 2025 https://www.gkv-spitzenverband.de/media/dokumente/krankenversicherung_1/telematik/digitales/2025_DiGA_Bericht_GKV_SV.pdf and High-Tech Gruenderfonds https://www.htgf.de/en/selfapy-secures-seven-figure-funding/ . Funding figures are not totalled here because the three available sources conflict; the 20 percent market-share statement is the seller's and is unverified.

Startuprad.io coverage of Selfapy

Selfapy appears in the following Startuprad.io interviews, analysis and long-form profiles.

MedTech Startup Selfapy Offers Psychological Help Without Wait #GSA22 — Founder Interview
Published: 15 March 2026
Last updated: 27 August 2026
Coverage type: Interview
https://www.startuprad.io/post/medtech-startup-selfapy-offers-psychological-help-without-wait-gsa22-founder-interview

An English World Premiere: Meet Kranus Health the Startup Behind Germany's Most Successful Digital Therapeutic
Published: 15 March 2026
Last updated: 14 August 2026
Coverage type: Interview
https://www.startuprad.io/post/an-english-world-premiere-meet-kranus-health-the-startup-behind-germany-s-most-successful-digita

Meet Edupression a Vienna-based App on Prescription — Founder Interview
Published: 15 March 2026
Last updated: 14 August 2026
Coverage type: Interview
https://www.startuprad.io/post/meet-edupression-a-vienna-based-app-on-prescription-founder-interview

Endosane Brings New Hope For Patients With Mental Health Conditions — Founder Interview
Published: 15 March 2026
Last updated: 26 August 2026
Coverage type: Interview
https://www.startuprad.io/post/endosane-brings-new-hope-for-patients-with-mental-health-conditions-founder-interview

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Canonical record: https://www.startuprad.io/entities/selfapy