‘Text and I’ll Tell You if You’re Depressed’ Startup Raises $14M

Palo Alto-based Mindstrong Health, a startup transforming the diagnosis and treatment of neuropsychiatric disorders through the power of AI and mobile technology, has recently announced that it has raised $14 million in a Series A round led by Foresite Capital and ARCH Venture Partners, with participation from other investors .

“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” – said founder and CEO Dr. Paul Dagum.

The startup, established in 2014, mines the information on consumers’ phones to create “digital biomarkers” to try to predict depression, anxiety and schizophrenia. “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”  – cofounder and President Dr. Tom Insel, who at one point used to work at Alphabet’s life sciences unit. The company tracks users’ taps, swipes and keystrokes. It looks at locations and frequency of texts and calls. It also tracks word use. Without reading people’s emails, Mindstrong can look at “word histograms” that show how frequently certain words are used. For instance, when people become depressed, “there’s a shift in pronouns, instead of saying ‘we, you, they,’ it turns into ‘I, I, I,'” Insel said.

Thing to note. Mindstrong has also partnered with an insurance company that will run a pilot program for 600 members with serious disorders as early detection of a psychotic episode or a relapse in depression could help it guide the member to treatment earlier, and avoid costly hospital stays.