Mindstrong Health raises $100M to transform how we measure and promote mental health

Mind­strong scores $100M to mon­i­tor well­ness via smart­phone behav­iors (Mobi­Health News):

This morn­ing dig­i­tal men­tal health plat­form Mind­strong scored a whop­ping $100 mil­lion in Series C funding.

While Mind­strong has a his­to­ry of sol­id fund­ing rounds, this amount will more than dou­ble its total fund­ing. In 2017 it got its first $14 mil­lion cash infu­sion. That was fol­lowed by a $15 mil­lion Series B fund­ing round in June of 2018, which got a $31 mil­lion add-on in Jan­u­ary of 2019, bring­ing the company’s total fund­ing to just under $60 mil­lion before this news.

The com­pa­ny was first found­ed in 2014, but it made a splash in 2017 when for­mer NIMH direc­tor Dr. Thomas Insel left his posi­tion at Ver­i­ly to take on the role as pres­i­dent at Mind­strong. Insel is still involved in the com­pa­ny today in an advi­so­ry role…The tech­nol­o­gy also has a dig­i­tal bio­mark­er com­po­nent. This can track a patient’s smart­phone behav­iors. While the start­up will not see what a patient is doing on their phone, it can mon­i­tor how a patient taps, scrolls and types. It can look for indi­ca­tors of stress, depres­sion or oth­er men­tal health factors.

News in Context:

• Why We Invest­ed In Mind­strong Health by Stephen Hays, one of the investors in the round
• Mind­strong Health recruits slew of Sil­i­con Val­ley talent
• Mind­strong Health rais­es $14 mil­lion to mod­ern­ize the diag­no­sis and treat­ment of neu­ropsy­chi­atric dis­or­ders via arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence (AI) and smartphones
• The FDA cre­ates new Dig­i­tal Health unit to reimag­ine reg­u­la­to­ry paths in the age of scal­able, AI-enhanced innovation
• Kaiser Per­ma­nente offers Calm men­tal fit­ness app at no cost to mil­lions of members
• New report: Empow­er­ing 8 Bil­lion Minds via Eth­i­cal Devel­op­ment and Adop­tion of Neurotechnologies
• Five rea­sons the future of brain enhance­ment is dig­i­tal, per­va­sive and (hope­ful­ly) bright
• Three ways to pro­tect your men­tal health dur­ing –and after– COVID-19
• Ten neu­rotech­nolo­gies about to trans­form brain enhance­ment & health
• 10 high­lights from the 2019 Sharp­Brains Vir­tu­al Summit