Why this founder is building a mental health fund for founders

For many founders, mental health support is often the last thing on their laundry list of to-dos as they focus on scaling their businesses. And the barriers to care don’t help—whether due to cost, time, stigma, or simply not knowing where to turn. Much of that strain goes unaddressed.

James Oliver Jr. sees the issue as a systemic gap.

After experiencing the toll firsthand—including a failed startup, divorce, and raising twins—Oliver set out to build something he wished existed when he needed it most.

“In order to go to heaven, you’ve got to go through hell,” he said.

In March 2025, Oliver launched the Kabila Founder Mental Health Fund. Through the fund, US-based founders can receive four free virtual therapy sessions, or be reimbursed up to $300 for therapy if they already have a provider, and are connected with other wellness resources. According to Oliver, the fund has supported nearly 70 founders to date, and its website notes the fund has raised over $90,000 in donations. This month, venture capitalist Brad Feld, who also provided a seed grant, said he will match up to $25,000 in donations to Kabila.

Oliver told Founder Brew that the idea for the fund began after he experienced rough moments in his own entrepreneurial career. In the early 2010s, he was accepted at Gener8tor, a Wisconsin-based accelerator almost 1,000 miles away from his friends and family in Brooklyn. His time there coincided with the premature birth of his twin children, both of whom had health issues that necessitated weeks in the NICU.

“I cried every day,” he told Founder Brew. “I’m in Gener8tor, nontechnical founder, solo, trying to find a developer to build this for me, waking up at 2, 3 o’clock every morning, just because I couldn’t sleep,” he said.

Oliver received backing for that startup and saw some success with publicizing his product on Today and Good Morning America.

“The product was brilliant, but it never caught on. We ran out of money, and I had to go back home. I was taking care of toddlers, trying to grind and keep this thing going, but eventually it collapsed under its own weight. The whole time this was happening, my mental health was deteriorating. I was functionally depressed,” he said.

After that startup, Oliver aimed to raise a venture fund, but he kept thinking about ways to help founders. He is also the author of a self-help book for founders.

“The most important things for me are being a good husband and being a good father to my twins…and if my brain’s scrambled, I can’t do either one of those things effectively. So I decided to put a pin in the venture fund and just go spin up a nonprofit to provide mental wellness resources to the thousands of startup founders in my ecosystem,” he said.

Building and sustaining a program like this isn’t easy. Over a conversation and emails with Founder Brew, Oliver shared his vision for the fund, the challenges of scaling it, and what still needs to change to address founder mental health challenges.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

From your experience, what gaps did you see in how founders were being supported—especially when it comes to things like access and cost of care?

First of all, 72% of founders are having some mental health challenges—there’s different degrees of that, and that’s just from Startup Snapshot. Of those 72%, 81% of them are suffering in silence. That’s a lot of people. There’s still a lot of stigma around mental health for founders, and there’s not a lot of people out there really doing anything about it. There’s a lot of performances out there. If you go on LinkedIn, or you Google “who’s advocating for founder mental health,” you’ll see some stuff pop up, and it’s just stuff that pops up. We’re actually doing something about the problem. That’s the gap. It’s a huge demand, there’s a lot of stigma, and there’s not nearly enough resources to address the problem.

How do cost and insurance factor into access to mental health care for founders—and how does your fund address that?

Many founders don’t have insurance, and many simply can’t afford it. We address this by paying for it for them.

What were the biggest challenges getting this off the ground?

Money, and the other challenge is apathy…Until somebody can do some kind of research and draw a straight line between founder wellness and startup outcomes, a lot of the investors are simply not going to really care. There are some who care…but writ large, they don’t care enough to actually support the movement with their dollars and or their time, but that’s why we’re here to change that.

Based on your experience, what are some of the barriers Black founders face when it comes to accessing or seeking mental health support?

Historically Black people don’t necessarily go to therapists. But being Black comes with its own unique set of challenges. I was raising a venture fund, so as a new, first-time fund manager, who, by the way, also happens to be Black, makes it inherently more difficult to raise a fund overall.

It’s hard to be Black in America—let’s be honest—and that just makes it harder to have good mental wellness if you’re not very intentional about your mental health hygiene.

Why do you think it’s so difficult for founders to ask for help?

A lot of the time, they see it as a sign of weakness. In some cases—and they’re probably right about this—they feel like they will be judged by investors and deemed as uninvestable, unstable.

Do you think loneliness is a common experience among founders?

Absolutely. “Why?” is your next question. Because if you’re a founder, 99% of the people in your circle—unless you’ve got a bunch of founder friends—don’t understand what you’re doing, why you’re doing it, why you would choose to put yourself through the meat grinder every day. They don’t get it, so it’s lonely. “Oh, why don’t you go get a job?” Because I’m the world’s worst employee, that’s why.

Aside from money, what are the biggest barriers right now to expanding this kind of help for more founders?

It's money, it’s awareness, it’s people talking about it, people being willing to lead…We need more people willing to lead in the conversation, willing to lead by expanding access to information and resources to their founders in their communities, and just being willing to talk about it and to normalize the conversation. We simply need more people, more awareness, and more money.

What advice would you give to someone building a company today who might be struggling but hasn’t sought help?

Find your tribe. Do something. If you’re into religion, spirituality, exercise, yoga, meditation, journaling, do something. Do something intentional to take care of yourself. Figure out what works for you.