St. Paul-based startup BetterYou has landed $6 million in Series A funding for its app that works to promote healthy phone-use habits by using artificial intelligence to nudge users toward their goals.

The round was led by Wisconsin-based Capital Midwest, with additional funding from St. Paul-based Mairs & Power, Maple Grove-based Great North Ventures, Cleveland-based North Coast Ventures, and Nebraska-based NelNet.

Though it’s based in Minnesota, BetterYou has partnered with businesses across the United States, including companies like H&R Block, Amway, and Allina Health. The St. Paul startup has also teamed up with colleges and universities such as Superior College in Duluth, Michigan State University, and Cleveland State University.

While there are many lifestyle and fitness apps out there to track habits, CEO and co-founder Sean Higgins said that BetterYou uses artificial intelligence to track a user’s patterns while working to nudge them toward their goals. Once a user sets goals like getting more sleep, reading more, or socializing more, BetterYou automatically tracks progress without the need for manual entry.

The app sends notifications in three circumstances: when a user is on their phone, when a user is on an app they often spend extended periods of time on, and when there’s something a user said they’d rather have been doing. It can even track a user’s location to see when they are at places like the gym, Higgins told TCB in a Thursday morning interview.

Higgins calls himself “patient zero” for the BetterYou technology.

“I would get to the end of my week, and I wouldn’t have done things that were important in my life, like call my parents or go to the gym,” he said. “I would tell myself the same story: that I was really busy.”

But when, at the end of the week, Higgins’ phone sent him a screentime notification about how he spent time on various apps, it told a different story. “It would say, ‘Hey, Sean, you were on YouTube for four hours this week,’ he said. “And I had to reconcile that with the fact that I didn’t call my parents. I can’t both be too busy and be on YouTube for four hours, right?”

Currently, BetterYou’s revenue comes from licensing agreements with businesses and universities. It is not available yet for individuals to download. Depending on the customizations and features used by institutions licensing with BetterYou, the cost ranges between $4 to $5 a month per person for the base platform, Higgins said. The company does offer discounts to institutions with a large user base.

BetterYou is not disclosing the total number of users on the platform today, but Higgins said it has reached tens of thousands of users so far. The company’s goal is to eventually have 50 million people using the app, a number Higgins said would make for a wider impact when addressing technology addiction fueled by apps like social media and entertainment sites that profit from keeping users on-screen as long as possible.

The company launched in 2018 before the AI craze hit, so it’s already been using this “contextual nudging technology,” which BetterYou patented just this year, said Higgins, an MBA grad from the University of St. Thomas.

Currently, the company has 25 employees. With the raise, BetterYou plans to invest in additional sales, marketing, and software hires. It will also continue to refine its mobile app user experience.