Neurological-focused device start-up Mindstrong Health said yesterday it raised $14 million in a Series A round of financing to support its neuropsychiatric treatment and diagnosis platform.
Mindstrong’s AI-powered platform is designed to monitor patterns of interaction on smartphone devices to objective measures of brain function.
The company’s platform aims to provide “continuous digital biomarkers of mood and cognition,” which it said includes processing speed, attention, memory and executive function.
“What excites me about Mindstrong is the transformation of an individual’s patterns of typing or scrolling on a smartphone into precise measures of cognitive function. This new, powerful approach to assessment serves as the foundation for developing better interventions to improve mental health care. Mental disorders are global health problems. With smartphones we have a potential global solution,” Mindstrong Health co-founder & prez Dr. Tom Insel said in prepared remarks.
The round was led by Foresite Capital and ARCH Venture Partners, and was joined by Optum Ventures, Berggruen Holdings and the One Mind Brain Health Impact fund, according to the Palo Alto, Calif.-based company.
“Mindstrong Health’s founding team brings unmatched understanding of the critical challenges surrounding the way in which the medical community cares for patients suffering from cognitive health disorders. By fusing together Paul, Rick, and Tom’s collective experience, leadership, and technical vision, those concerned with improving patient outcomes will gain an innovative platform that modernizes and vastly improves the way in which care is provided,” Foresite Capital CEO Jim Tananbaum said in a prepared statement.
The company said that results from its clinical trial will be released in the coming months to support the platform.
“All modern medicine is based on objective measurement, yet tracking mental health has been limited to subjective reports in a clinical environment. To improve outcomes for people with mental disorders, we need the kind of objective measures we have for other chronic diseases like diabetes and heart disease. Mindstrong’s technology delivers continuous, objective measures of behavior and cognition at a level of resolution and insight that has never been possible,” Mindstrong Health CEO Dr. Paul Dagum said in a press release.
