Session

What Session does

Session is a New York-based, privately-held company founded in 2017 that operates a peer support platform designed to help individuals address personal troubles alongside others facing similar challenges. The company positions itself as a community-driven alternative to solo self-help, facilitating connection between users who share comparable experiences rather than delivering clinical treatment or one-to-one professional services. Its only public-facing digital property is sessiontogether.com.

The company is led by founder Deepak Penesetti MD alongside a clinically-credible co-founding team that includes Lloyd Sederer MD as Cofounder and Chief Medical Officer, Raeshem Nijhon as Cofounder and Chief Experience Officer, and Christopher Natale as co-founder. Session employs between 11 and 50 people and has not disclosed a commercial model, pricing structure, user counts, or revenue mechanics in the available source data. The only funding event on record is a $0 round dated March 2017, with no subsequent capital raises identified.

The available source material is materially inconsistent: multiple data fields describe a decentralized encrypted messaging application (including quantum-resistant encryption, community-operated nodes, and a Vitalik Buterin donation) that does not align with Session's stated peer support mission, leadership team, or website. Those elements have been excluded from this analysis because they conflict with the firm's first-party firmographic description. As a result, the commercial model, scale, and growth signals for the peer support business remain largely undisclosed in the available evidence.

Name

Session

Website

https://sessiontogether.com

Company type

Private

Founded year

2017

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

11–50 employees

Short description

Session is a New York-based peer support platform founded in 2017 that helps individuals tackle personal troubles alongside others facing similar experiences, serving a consumer audience through its sessiontogether.com community.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Secure Messaging

SIC

Services-Prepackaged Software (7372)

akta.pro primary industry

Community/Group Chat Platforms (BPAMACAH)

akta.pro secondary industry

Collaboration Account Takeover & Session Protection (HDADAKAH)

Keywords

• Encrypted messaging
• Decentralized communication
• Private messaging
• Secure messaging app
• End-to-end encryption

Headquarters

HQ city

New York

HQ country

United States

HQ region

North America

Markets served

GTM type

B2C

Offering type

Software

Cost components

Technology or R&D, Personnel, Infrastructure, Operations

Revenue model

1. App Distribution: Session is a free messaging application available for download. Revenue model appears to rely on donations and community support rather than direct monetization of the app itself.

Go-to-market motion1 record

Distribution channels1 record

Marketing channels2 records

Core offering

Session is a decentralized encrypted messaging application that uses end-to-end encryption without central servers or traditional identifiers like phone numbers. The network is secured by community-operated nodes, providing private messaging to over 1 million users worldwide. The app is free to download and operates without collecting user metadata or account identifiers.

Product overview

Session is a single unified encrypted messaging product built on a decentralized architecture. The core offering consists of the Session messaging app, which recently received a major upgrade through Protocol V2 introducing quantum-resistant encryption and Perfect Forward Secrecy. Unlike traditional messaging platforms, Session does not require phone numbers or central servers, relying instead on community-operated nodes to secure the network.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Products and services

• Session

Named customers1 record

Segments1 record

Ideal customer profiles1 record

Technology focussed Yes

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Feature4 records

Partnerships

One partnership is on record.

• SimpleX ChatminorOthers · 27 November 2025Both Session and SimpleX Chat received donations from Vitalik Buterin as decentralized messaging apps focused on privacy. They are mentioned together but appear to operate independently rather than as formal partners.

Scale indicators3 records

Recent moves2 records

Expansion highlights1 record

Emerging players

• Keybase: Keybase offered end-to-end encrypted messaging built on public-key identity verification before being acquired by Zoom; it is a comparable privacy-messaging product for technically sophisticated users.
• Status.im: Status is a Web3-native messenger and Ethereum wallet that, like Session, targets crypto- and privacy-conscious users with end-to-end encrypted communication.
• Briar: Briar is an open-source, peer-to-peer messaging app designed for activists and journalists; it overlaps with Session's privacy-and-resilience use case but relies on direct device connectivity rather than a node network.

Direct peers

• Element (Matrix): Element is the leading client for the open-source Matrix protocol, offering decentralized, end-to-end encrypted messaging — architecturally aligned with Session's decentralized philosophy.
• SimpleX Chat: SimpleX Chat is a decentralized, privacy-first messaging app that — like Session — requires no phone number or identifier and is explicitly grouped with Session in Vitalik Buterin's donation announcement.
• Wire: Wire is an end-to-end encrypted messaging and collaboration platform focused on enterprises and privacy-conscious teams, comparable to Session in cryptographic approach but differentiated by a B2B go-to-market.
• Signal: Signal is the leading end-to-end encrypted messaging app for consumers and is Session's most direct competitor, offering similar privacy guarantees but with a centralized server architecture.
• Threema: Threema is a privacy-focused messaging app from Switzerland that, like Session, emphasizes anonymity (no phone number required) and end-to-end encryption.

Broad incumbents

• Telegram: Telegram is a large-scale messaging platform with optional end-to-end encrypted 'Secret Chats'; it competes with Session for privacy-aware users but operates a fundamentally different, centralized model.
• Wickr (Amazon Wickr): Wickr is an enterprise-focused end-to-end encrypted messaging product (now part of AWS), comparable to Session on cryptographic guarantees but serving regulated enterprises and government customers.

Market position

Strengths4 records

Weaknesses4 records

Competitive moat2 records

Key risks5 records

Key highlights5 records

Customer concentration

• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/sessiontogether

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles2 records

Funding overview

Funding rounds1 record

Investors

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about Session