๐ŸŒฑ Seed Round Open

Kind words
Understood.

Communication support for neurodivergent people.

BridgeSpeak sits between you and your messages. We read what arrives and check what you send, so tone, sarcasm and implied meaning stop being invisible โ€” for a twelve-year-old in a group chat, and for the adult they become.

1 in 31
U.S. children diagnosed with ASD[1]
$50B+
Global neurodivergent ed-tech market[4]
We have not found a direct competitor doing real-time interpretation of received peer messages.
How It Works

BridgeSpeak is a proxy โ€” for what comes in, and for what goes out.

Incoming
Message arrives
โ†’
We decode it
โ†’
You see a plain description and a colour signal
Outgoing
You draft a reply
โ†’
We check it against the conversation's tone
โ†’
You choose what to send

If message patterns suggest someone is distressed, a quiet alert goes to a designated parent, administrator or mediator โ€” never the message content itself.

Before Anything Else

Join us in early adoption โ€” as a family or an institutional partner.

Before we talk about funding, we want to talk about you. BridgeSpeak is built with neurodivergent individuals, families, schools, clinics, and workplaces from day one โ€” not for them after the fact. If that's you, we'd rather hear from you than from an investor.

Want to join our early partners?

We're building a founding cohort of institutional partners โ€” schools, continuing education and community college programs serving young adults, clinical practices, and employers โ€” alongside individuals and families, to shape BridgeSpeak before public launch. Institutions are a primary focus of this partnership, not an afterthought. Join now and you help define how BridgeSpeak works inside your school, practice, or workplace, in exchange for free early access and a real seat at the table โ€” no pitch, no sales call, just a real conversation about whether this actually helps.

  • Free access during the partnership period, for individuals and institutions alike
  • Founding institutional partnerships: schools, continuing education programs, clinics, and employers
  • Direct input into what we build next
  • A say in language, tone, privacy, and compliance decisions before they ship

Prefer email? Reach us directly at earlyaccess@BridgeSpeak.ai

Why This. Why Now.

Three things are true in 2026 that weren't true two years ago.

โšก
The technology finally works.
Frontier AI models can now read tone, sarcasm, emotional subtext, and implied meaning with genuine nuance. That capability didn't exist at the level BridgeSpeak requires until recently. We're building on it from day one.
๐Ÿ“ˆ
The need has never been larger.
1 in 31 U.S. children is now diagnosed with ASD โ€” a 375% increase since monitoring began in 2000. ADHD diagnoses have reached 7.1 million children. The community is bigger, better identified, and more urgently underserved than ever.
๐Ÿ’ก
The community is already doing this themselves.
Every day, neurodivergent kids and adults paste confusing messages into ChatGPT and ask: "What does this mean? How should I respond?" It works โ€” imperfectly, inconsistently, with no memory, no sender context, no caregiver connection. They've already told us what they need. BridgeSpeak is built to deliver it.
The Problem

A single eye-roll can shatter a friendship.

For neurodivergent children, the hidden layers of communication โ€” sarcasm, tone, implied meaning, a trailing emoji โ€” aren't just confusing. They're invisible. A well-meaning joke lands as cruelty. A neutral "whatever" reads as rejection. And the child who misread it doesn't know they misread it. The result isn't just hurt feelings. It's isolation, anxiety, avoidable meltdowns, and friendships that quietly end because nobody caught the misread in time.

"I watched it happen too many times โ€” one eye-roll, one 'whatever ๐Ÿ™„,' and then crying, high emotions, a friendship on the brink. I built BridgeSpeak because the bridge I desperately needed didn't exist."

โ€” Collin Mariner Co-Founder & CEO
1 in 31
U.S. children now diagnosed with ASD โ€” a 375% increase since monitoring began in 2000[1]
7.1M
children in the US diagnosed with ADHD, with millions more carrying anxiety and related conditions[1]
$461B+
projected annual societal cost of autism in the US, including lost productivity and services[2]
Significantly higher
rates of chronic loneliness among autistic individuals compared to non-autistic peers[3]
The Solution

Between the message and the reaction, there's BridgeSpeak.

Every other tool helps you send better. BridgeSpeak helps you receive accurately.

01
โšก
Instant Decode
BridgeSpeak reads every incoming and outgoing message and flags sarcasm, emotional tone, emojis, and hidden meaning in real time.
02
๐ŸŒก๏ธ
Temperature Check
A color-coded signal tells the child whether a message is warm, neutral, or worth a pause โ€” instantly, without having to figure it out themselves.
03
๐Ÿ’ฌ
Gentle Coaching
Before sending a reply, BridgeSpeak offers 2โ€“3 calm response options. If emotions are running high, a gentle check-in comes first. The child always decides what to send.
04
๐Ÿ›ก๏ธ
Safety Net
If message patterns suggest someone is distressed, a designated parent, administrator or mediator gets a quiet alert โ€” never the message content. Privacy protected by design, not policy.
Market Opportunity

A massive, underserved market.

The neurodivergent ed-tech and mental health tech space is growing rapidly โ€” yet no product addresses real-time peer communication translation for children.

Total Addressable Market
$50B+
Neurodivergent Ed-Tech & Mental Health Tech
Global market for tools, apps, and services supporting neurodivergent individuals across all age groups. Growing at ~15% CAGR.[4]
Serviceable Addressable Market
$8.2B
US Neurodivergent Children Apps & Tools
Families of autistic and ADHD children ages 5โ€“18 in the US who actively purchase digital support tools, therapy apps, and educational software.[5]
Serviceable Obtainable Market
$45M
Year 3 Beachhead Target
Families of ASD/ADHD teens aged 10โ€“16 in top 20 US metros โ€” the highest-motivated, most tech-comfortable segment. 300,000 families ร— $150/yr ($12.50/month) avg revenue.[5]
Who We Serve

Built for individuals. Scaled for institutions.

BridgeSpeak meets neurodivergent users where communication actually happens โ€” in their phones, their schools, and their workplaces.

๐Ÿ“ฑ
Individuals & Social Platforms
Consumer ยท Direct-to-user
Neurodivergent individuals โ€” teens especially โ€” communicate their most emotionally loaded messages through direct messaging, group chats, and social media. BridgeSpeak integrates directly into those moments: reading incoming messages for tone, flagging potential misreads, and offering calm response options before anything is sent. No app-switching. No pausing to ask a parent. Just a quiet bridge, right where the conversation is happening.
๐Ÿซ
Educational Institutions
K-12 Schools ยท IEP Teams ยท Continuing Education
Schools are on the front lines of neurodivergent communication challenges โ€” in classrooms, hallways, and increasingly in digital spaces. BridgeSpeak gives SPED educators, IEP coordinators, and school counselors a tool that supports students between sessions, surfaces communication patterns for review, and connects caregivers and teachers without compromising student privacy. That same support extends past graduation: community colleges, vocational programs, and continuing education institutions serving young adults need the same bridge as students age out of K-12 services and into more independent, less-supervised settings. Purpose-built for the institutional trust, compliance, and consent requirements every stage of education requires.
๐Ÿข
Enterprise & Internal Communications
Businesses ยท HR Teams ยท Workforce Inclusion
Neurodivergent adults in the workplace navigate the same invisible layers of communication โ€” the ambiguous Slack message, the terse email, the tone that doesn't translate in writing. BridgeSpeak's enterprise offering helps organizations build more inclusive internal communication cultures: supporting neurodivergent employees directly while giving HR and team leads tools to reduce miscommunication-driven friction across the whole team.
What We're Building Next

The MVP is the start, not the finish.

These aren't live yet โ€” they're what's next on the roadmap.

Next
๐Ÿ”Š
Audio & Emoji Signalling
Tone and intent detection extended beyond text โ€” into voice messages and the emoji shorthand people actually communicate with.
Next
โœ…
Reply Verification
A second check on a drafted reply before it sends, confirming it lands the way it's intended to.
Next
๐ŸŽฏ
Personalisation
BridgeSpeak learns each person's own communication patterns and calibrates its signals to them specifically.
Next
๐Ÿ›๏ธ
Institutional Deployment
Purpose-built rollout for schools, clinics, and employers โ€” with the compliance and admin tooling institutions require.
Where We're Headed

Standalone today, embedded next.

BridgeSpeak is our own app right now โ€” deliberately, and not for long. Where we're going is the same engine running inside the apps you already use.

Today

The BridgeSpeak app

Our own app is the fastest way to get real support to real families and learn what actually helps. It's how we prove the engine works before we put it anywhere else.

Next

The same engine, inside your apps

BridgeSpeak in the communication chain of the tools you already use. No new app to download, no network to rebuild, no friendships to move.

Every platform is its own integration problem, and some are genuinely hard. We're building them one at a time, starting with the hardest.

Traction & Progress

Built with love. Backed by real need.

We're an early-stage team with a working MVP, a clear beta pipeline, and a community that's been waiting for exactly this.

MVP
Working prototype with core decode + response features built and tested
4
Passionate co-founders โ€” cloud architect, software engineer, high-conflict mediator, and a parent who lived this problem
Data Privacy
Privacy-first architecture: COPPA & GDPR compliant
0 ads
No advertising, no data sold โ€” ever. Built for trust with families, not advertisers

Where We Are

  • Working MVP with core decode and response features built and tested
  • Claude AI integration complete for general nuanced tone and intent analysis
  • React Native mobile framework selected and scaffolded
  • UX/UI low-fi wireframes completed for core user flows

Where We're Going

  • Beta app in development and ready for early adoption sign-ups
  • Closed beta recruiting now โ€” targeting 50 families across ABA therapy practices, IEP coordinators, CHADD chapter networks, and SPED educators
  • Beta families receive free access in exchange for structured feedback over six weeks
  • B-Corp certification targeted within 18 months of incorporation
  • Enterprise and institutional partnerships in scoping โ€” schools, HR teams, and workforce inclusion programs
The Team

Built by people who care deeply.

We're parents, engineers, and researchers united by a shared belief: that communication should never be a barrier to belonging. Cloud and software engineers, a high-conflict mediator, and parents of children who have lived through misread messages blowing up relationships โ€” all with a passion to tackle this problem.

CM
Collin Mariner
Co-Founder & CEO
Seasoned VP of Cloud Operations with nearly two decades of enterprise tech leadership. A start-up veteran with experience scaling massive technology and data solutions, Collin has built and led cloud engineering teams across North America, India and EMEA. Built BridgeSpeak out of lived experience as the father of a neurodivergent daughter. Collin leads strategy, fundraising, and product vision.
Cloud Architecture Terraform & GitOps DevOps Leadership AWS / Azure Product Vision
DK
Steven "Duke" Cvar
Co-Founder & CTO
Senior engineering leader with 20+ years building cloud-native systems at enterprise scale in the legal and ad tech spaces. Staff Software Engineer & Engineering Manager at Rocket Lawyer, where he's led zero-downtime migrations of 38M+ users. Previously a Systems Design Architect at Acxiom for nearly 17 years, where he architected an ad-tech platform processing 2.95 billion daily transactions and an API security gateway at 99.9%+ uptime. Duke has expertise in API governance, identity management, API & data security, and a passion for AI/LLM integration โ€” the exact capability at BridgeSpeak's core. US Navy veteran.
Systems Architecture AI/LLM Integration Cloud-Native API Governance US Navy Veteran
LM
Liz Merrill, M.M.
Co-Founder & Chief Experience Officer
Responsible for product direction and user research, the clinical integrity of BridgeSpeak's approach, the language and tone of everything user-facing, and outreach to therapists, researchers, schools, and clinical partners. The question she keeps bringing back to the table: does this actually help the person holding the phone? Certified mediator and high-conflict negotiation specialist. Founder of Open Space Mediation. Seven years teaching CLEs for the Colorado Bar Association, published on conflict dynamics, and a decade helping people in crisis find workable ground. That expertise shapes how BridgeSpeak is designed to intervene: with precision, not noise. BA from UNC Chapel Hill; M.M. from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. Honored in Marquis Who's Who 2024.
Conflict Resolution Mediation Clinical Integrity User Research High-Conflict Negotiation
MK
Maxine Kampbell
Co-Founder & Head of R&D
PhD student at Colorado State University, Maxine brings rigorous research and academic skills to BridgeSpeak's development team, helping ensure the product is scientifically grounded. Fully funded as a graduate assistant for 3 years, Maxine has experience helping students learn, professors teach, and in contributing to the scientific community. She has an interest in the technical side of AI/ML, and a passion for video game development. BS and MS in computer science from CSU; BS in mathematics from CSU.
AI/ML Research Software Development Colorado State University R&D
Seed Round

Help us build the bridge.

We're raising a seed round to hire developers, complete the mobile app, and launch our beta program with 500 families. This is more than a startup โ€” it's a mission.

$1M
Seed Round Target
18 mo
Runway
500
Beta Family Target

Use of Funds

Product development & engineering 45%
Beta user acquisition & community 20%
Operations & infrastructure 20%
Legal, compliance & IP 10%
Marketing & partnerships 5%
Request the Investor Deck Talk to Collin directly
Sources
  1. CDC, Autism and Developmental Disabilities Monitoring (ADDM) Network, 2025 โ€” ASD prevalence (1 in 31 children) and 375% increase since monitoring began in 2000; CDC National Survey of Children's Health โ€” ADHD prevalence (7.1M children).
  2. Autism Speaks; Leigh & Du, "Brief Report: Time to Diagnosis and Cost of Autism Spectrum Disorder," Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders โ€” projected annual societal cost of autism in the US.
  3. Grace et al., Autism journal, 2022 โ€” chronic loneliness among autistic adults relative to non-autistic peers.
  4. Internal estimate, not yet third-party sourced โ€” global neurodivergent ed-tech & mental health tech TAM. Flagged in our business plan for replacement with a named research-firm estimate before use in formal investor materials.
  5. BridgeSpeak internal market model โ€” SAM and SOM derived from US autism/ADHD prevalence data (see [1]) applied to target household and pricing assumptions, not an external market research figure.