Ігор Вишневський Startup 8 October 2025, 09:00

Listen to music, listen to yourself. How startup InTempo offers to fight panic attacks and anxiety disorders through your favorite songs

Daily attacks on civilian infrastructure in cities and villages, horror stories about winter without gas and electricity, as well as constant «all-out burning» in the news from the front, complete clouding of the brain and one’s own future, and, worst of all, news of the dead: both casual acquaintances and very close and dear people. The word «stress» is too weak to describe the reality of Ukrainians in any way. Nevertheless, it is now impossible to imagine any other place on the planet where the issue of combating stress, overwork, tension, as well as psychological disorders and mental illnesses would be more relevant than in Ukraine.

From gloves to a case, and then to the current format

InTempo CEO Alina Holovatyuk noted that initially InTempo’s idea of combating the negative effects of stress, in addition to software, necessarily included hardware solutions. But later they decided to abandon them.

«The idea for the startup was mine, and it all started with it — without a team, without funding, without experience. But the initial idea was somewhat different — it was hardware, namely — tactile gloves, with which you reflect and reproduce the rhythm of the music. And these gloves were supposed to go hand in hand with the application, that is, it was hardware and software,» Alina recalls about the first iteration of the startup as of 2021.

According to the startup founder, literally immediately after the idea came about, she submitted it to the Japanese international Lexus Design Awards competition, and it made it to the finals. But, despite the interest of the competition organizers, Alina’s mentors refused to implement the idea. «First, it’s not practical, second, it’s expensive, and third, people won’t carry these gloves with them everywhere. In addition, during the summer heat, hardly anyone will want to wear them, no matter how comfortable they are,» she recalls.

After these hesitations, the startup team moved on to another hardware solution, tactile phone cases — instead of reflecting the soothing rhythm of music through special gloves, they thought that this could be done through such a high-tech case. However, this was only an interim solution that was not put into production.

App and tactile cover. Screenshot from the InTempo website

«We implemented working prototypes that went to exhibitions. We were already at the stage when we contacted production in China and were ready to launch them. But it was the manufacturers who discouraged us from developing hardware at all, or told us to look for something more universal. The fact is that every year a bunch of new smartphone models are released. They are constantly changing in design and physical parameters, the camera windows are shifted in one direction or another, and our cases would have to be constantly redesigned and adapted to different models,» noted Alina Holovatyuk. Despite the fact that during the development of the cases, the team went through long experiments with users to study their experience and finger movements, this idea sank into oblivion.

How InTempo works now

According to Alina, it is not about using InTempo in the acute phase of a panic attack, because it will not be 100% effective, and then other means and practices should be used. The main benefit of the application is in the prevention and averting of these acute conditions.

«This is a preventive application. And we focused on this after communicating with both users and psychotherapists and medical workers. In addition, we had a „pilot“ in a medical center for war veterans in one of the villages near Kyiv. All this accumulated experience pushed us to focus on preventive actions. It is better to react before a panic attack occurs,» the startup founder explains. But, she announced, in case a panic attack has already started its mechanism in the psyche, the InTempo team is also preparing a separate, slightly different way to use the application.

According to the founder, at the current stage, InTempo is a personalized rhythmic music game where the user reproduces the rhythm of musical tracks, synchronizes breathing and heartbeat with the rhythm of the music and, thus, calms down in an acute psychological state.

«To make it personalized, we introduced three types of parameters. The first is to determine the current stress level of the user who simply enters our application. The second is to determine the musical genres that the user listens to. And the third parameter is the user’s state at a given moment in time, because the mental state changes very quickly throughout the day,» Alina Holovatyuk describes the given parameters.

According to her, the main parameters for personalization are implemented using machine learning, and another, fourth parameter, which is taken into account later, is the user’s experience of using the application. It is on this basis that the application offers a personalized music session, which consists of tracks with a certain Beats Per Minute (meaning the musical tempo). «And these Beats Per Minute coincide with your current heartbeat,» the startuper summarizes.

She explained that the second version of the app is currently in closed beta on iOS. «We are correcting certain inaccuracies and are further testing it with neurotherapists from Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv,» Alina Holovatyuk stated.

In therapy, this approach, she says, is called a bottom-up approach: that is, focusing on the body’s physiological responses, nervous system regulation, and sensory experiences to provide a sense of safety and stability — before addressing thoughts and emotions.

«The point is that you focus on reproducing the rhythm of the music, not on stress, using your senses — visual, auditory, and tactile. You create the rhythm of the music, and this actually grounds you in some activity. Plus, it’s very important that it’s your personalized music that matches your inner world,» explains the startup founder.

In addition, one of the most important elements of the application and a component of its effect for people under stress is gamification. «We design everything as a game, we have gamification with certain levels. You gain points for each music session. At the same time, we do not make a person completely „fail“ without gaining enough points. This would be inappropriate and could further deepen the feeling of disappointment and stress. Instead, if you get into the rhythm of a music track, then at the end you will receive certain points, for which you can open something new — new music tracks and certain levels. That is, you are conditionally moving somewhere,» adds Alina Holovatyuk.

Team, ambassadors and fundraising

In addition to founder and CEO Alina Holovatyuk, judging by the InTempo website, the startup is also being worked on by UX/UI designer Polina Bobrova, developer Ilya Sobolev, as well as medical psychologist Mariana Kvyatkovska and IT advisor Nellya Leshchenko. Embedded system dev Dmytro Kryvyi also worked on hardware solutions, but, as already mentioned, at the current stage they decided to abandon this component of the product.

«In addition, we have an SMM specialist, and there was also a separate person for the backend. We are currently still looking for a new person for the backend. We are thinking of expanding a bit,» the founder shared.

One of the important issues facing the team is loading a truly large music library into the application, taking into account copyrights. Currently, the application uses only royalty-free tracks and covers of famous artists. According to Alina Holovatyuk, they are in the process of resolving the issue of expanding the content component, because for the goals set by the startup, it is extremely important to provide the user with the tracks that are his favorite and close to his taste.

«Music tracks that are familiar to users are more likely to physically sync with you — because you know them, because they are connected to your emotions, to your memories of the past,» she explains. The founder adds that she is currently in talks with music companies and recording studios to acquire large catalogs.

Meanwhile, the startup has already got its first star ambassadors on the Ukrainian music scene — Eurovision winners Kalush Orchestra. The musicians have submitted their song Changes to InTempo.

«This is an app made for people in panic to help them get through this time. We know what it’s like to be stressed and anxious, and we will be very grateful to everyone who supports this startup,» said Kalush Orchestra frontman Oleg Psyuk in a video posted on the InTempo website.

Of course, the most pressing issue for every startup is raising funds for its development.

InTempo is currently seeking $500,000 to expand the team, develop marketing/collaborations, and address music licensing/royalties, as well as develop a music AI agent.

On the way — a lot of pitches and competitions, which began practically immediately after the idea arose. The first of them, as already mentioned, was the Lexus Design Awards, where the startup immediately received funding for the implementation of the project. After a certain pause due to the start of a full-scale invasion, the InTempo team applied to the program of the German business incubator for music startups, as well as the South Korean program, which allowed them to attract some funds. In addition, the InTempo startup passed the YEP incubation program, and also participated in the Polish program from Huge Thing and the Challenger AI accelerator from Civitta. In addition to all of the above, InTempo is a beneficiary of Seeds of Bravery. In total, the project received 14 awards for the idea at various stages of development and participated in 5 international exhibitions.

Alina Holovatyuk estimates the number of people who potentially need to solve the problem of panic attacks and stress disorders at 850 million. 284 million of them are already using therapy and specialized applications. But if we narrow down InTempo’s potential audience to the Beachhead Market indicator, it will be 12.8 million users.

«A lot of people keep it all to themselves and try to solve the problem on their own, without using any means — neither antidepressants, nor visits to a therapist, nor, especially, any app,» she notes. However, the startup founder states that despite all the benefits of their product, it will not and should not replace either medication or psychological therapy.

AI-based mental health platform Pleso Therapy has raised $12 million in investment. Oleksandr Usyk is one of the investors