Our Beginnings
As a lifelong athlete, once Ryan transitioned from being a decorated NFL player to a full-time father, husband and entrepreneur, things started to change. Ryan battled anxiety and bouts of depression as he faced navigating the next phase of his life, no longer having the familiarity and stability of his 8-year career in the NFL.
During this pivotal moment in his life, Ryan also watched close family members battle chronic disease and illness, including strokes, heart attacks, Alzheimer’s, amputations from Type 2 Diabetes complications and more.
Reflecting on his personal experience and that of his family, he went searching for a health platform focused on the trajectory of Black health - and quickly recognized the absence of one. This was striking to him because despite being the most influential globally, the Black community faces an outsized risk for major diseases and illnesses.
Facing disparities across the spectrum, Ryan believed that the most appropriate starting point to becoming the universal health and wellness provider for the Black community had to be rooted in mental health.
“The Alchemist” is a novel by Paulo Coelho that emphasizes that it’s not the destination that is important, it’s the journey. This idea was the inspiration for Ryan Mundy when it came to naming his new venture, Alkeme.
What is Alkeme?
Alkeme offers Labs (therapist-led well-being courses) and Waves (guided meditations and audio therapies) with a focus on the Black experience. Alkeme strives to meet individuals where they are in their mental health journey and encourage them to go deeper.
“Alkeme is a platform that aggregates the best Black practitioners across different modalities, that’s one part of the sauce. The other part is that we are building a platform and developing content that is intentionally focused on the Black community and our specific mental health needs. We will be able to go deeper and further than the majority of mental health platforms who are serving the general population.”
No matter what stage you’re on in your mental health journey, Alkeme is here to be your guide—on your time and your terms.
Our core product offerings, Labs and Waves, are created to not only help users address the mental health challenges impacting their day-to-day life, but also to foster overall emotional well-being, through conquering fears, learning new skills, and empowering our users to take their healing in their own hands.
By choosing uniquely Black topics and producing actionable steps, our Labs serve as digestible and informative videos to help the community heal. Led by our Experts, our Labs cover topics such as generational trauma, finding your freedom and being Black in the workplace.
Our Mission
2020 was an unprecedented year that exposed a lot of feelings, many that we had potentially been suppressing while we were consumed with the busyness of everyday life. The world stopped, and we found ourselves having more time than ever to simply feel. With this new found awareness, it is our responsibility to address our mental health and healing as a Black community. At Alkeme, our mission is to make that process easier and more accessible.
Take a second and look back. What are some things you have become numb to? Was it microaggressions at work? The acknowledgement that a lot of our hurt is generationally rooted? Or just simply not being able to feel completely free? It is time we had the support and resources to dig into these topics and find our answers.
“We’ve designed our platform to support the Black mental health experience at scale - Black today, Black tomorrow, Black forever. And underneath that there’s a lot of different ways in which people show up as Black,” says Mundy. “I’m not here to segment or to say you are too Black or not Black enough. The Black experience is universal and impacts lives day to day, on a global scale. If you identify as Black or find yourself in our approach to mental health, our aim is to have a safe space for you within the platform.”
The Black community knows what the Black community needs the most. Most of our lives are filled with trying to fit into our environment rather than our environment fitting with us. Oftentimes we live by the code switch, even in environments that are meant to help us. That stops with Alkeme. Here, it is all about the authentic you.
So together, let's answer the tough questions, dig deep into our thoughts and break down our defenses. Let’s take the steps to expose and nurture our minds, bodies and souls.
Ryan Mundy
CEO & Founder of Alkeme
Join the Alkeme Team
We embody an entrepreneurial and fast-paced culture. We’re an ambitious, diverse, driven team and we push ourselves to accomplish a lot quickly. We challenge the status quo through intellectual curiosity and we hustle hard, daily.
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