Mental health meets the digital revolution: Mindstrong Health raises $14 million to modernize the diagnosis and treatment of neuropsychiatric disorders via artificial intelligence (AI) and smartphones

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Mind­strong Health Rais­es $14 Mil­lion in Series‑A Fund­ing (press release):

“Mind­strong Health, a start­up trans­form­ing the diag­no­sis and treat­ment of neu­ropsy­chi­atric dis­or­ders through the pow­er of AI and ubiq­ui­tous mobile tech­nol­o­gy, today announced that it has secured a $14 mil­lion round of Series‑A fund­ing. Led by Fore­site Cap­i­tal and ARCH Ven­ture Part­ners, the round includ­ed par­tic­i­pa­tion from Optum Ven­tures, Berggru­en Hold­ings and the One Mind Brain Health Impact Fund. The invest­ment will be used to build Mind­strong’s elite tech­nol­o­gy and clin­i­cal oper­a­tions team to sup­port large-scale research and development.

“All mod­ern med­i­cine is based on objec­tive mea­sure­ment, yet track­ing men­tal health has been lim­it­ed to sub­jec­tive reports in a clin­i­cal envi­ron­ment,” said Dr. Paul Dagum, founder and CEO of Mind­strong Health. “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.”

“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,” said Dr. Tom Insel, co-founder and Pres­i­dent of Mind­strong Health. “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.”

News in Context:

• Men­tal Health Inno­va­tion and Dr. Tom Insel: from the NIMH to Google/ Ver­i­ly Life Sci­ences to Start­up Mindstrong
• Info­graph­ic on the Dig­i­tal Brain Health Mar­ket 2012–2020
• 10 neu­rotech­nolo­gies about to trans­form brain enhance­ment and brain health
• 2017 Sharp­Brains Vir­tu­al Sum­mit: Brain Enhance­ment in the Dig­i­tal Age (Decem­ber 5–7th, 2017)
• Neu­rotech­nol­o­gy can improve our lives…if we first address these Pri­va­cy and Informed Con­sent issues
• Five rea­sons the future of brain enhance­ment is dig­i­tal, per­va­sive and (hope­ful­ly) bright