Cognixion Raises $12 Million to Enhance Assisted Reality (AR) Tech for Communication Disabilities

Round led by Prime Movers Lab, including Northwell Health, Amazon Alexa Fund and Volta Circle

SANTA BARBARA, Calif., Nov 16, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- SANTA BARBARA, Calif., Nov 16, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Cognixion® raised $12 million in seed funding to develop AI-powered neural interfaces that unlock speech and smart home controls for the hundreds of millions of people worldwide with communication and physical disabilities. The funding will help Cognixion develop new adaptive interfaces that make the Assisted Reality technology easier to use by everyone. Prime Movers Lab led the round with co-investors Northwell Health, Amazon Alexa Fund and Volta Circle.

Cognixion’s patented non-invasive, wireless brain-computer interface with an integrated augmented reality display, Cognixion ONE, detects the signals from the user's brainwaves associated with visual fixation on interactive objects and enables hands-free, voice-free control of AR/XR applications in the headset. Cognixion ONE is a closed-loop device that stimulates the visual cortex within the brain and reads its activity while sending control signals back to the AR application. It also integrates with leading research software. 

In addition to Cognixion ONE, the company is building advanced machine learning algorithms and an AI-powered language system, which adapts to each user's unique communication style, making it more efficient at recognizing and anticipating what they intend to communicate. Equally exciting, a Cognixion headset user will be able to interface directly with Amazon Alexa from anywhere, accessing the smart assistant’s functions within the headset to interact with their environment and control smart devices, or access news, music, information and more.

“Cognixion is solving usability and accessibility issues for AR/XR and enabling new capabilities for people with disabilities today,” says Andreas Forsland, Cognixion Founder and CEO, “And in the near future, we see our innovations becoming a fundamental part of the metaverse, as a biological interface plus highly adaptive algorithms that unlock new use cases for XR.”

“We believe that technology should be inclusive and universally accessible to every individual, and everyone deserves a solution that can adapt to their needs – and that it’s possible to build ONE solution that can be personalized for communication, information access, interacting with smart devices, and everything else life has to offer,” Andreas Forsland said. “Prime Movers Lab has the same focus around making augmentative human capabilities a reality. Unlike most VCs, Prime Movers Lab is an extension of our team. In addition to the funding that they are providing, they are already helping us with hiring, marketing, government relations and building a pipeline of prospective customers.”

“Cognixion has created a breakthrough human-machine interface that accelerates and enriches human communication and connection,” Prime Movers Lab General Partner, Amy Kruse said. “You would think that Cognixion ONE is something out of science fiction if it didn’t already exist.  We believe that it will be a fundamentally life-changing and integral blend of an AI software platform with hardware to assist people of all ages who live with speech and motor disabilities, including Cerebral Palsy, Brainstem Stroke, ALS and many other conditions. Further we see the broader expansion of this platform to extend to all users to enrich life experiences, including: gaming, apps, the metaverse, and beyond. ”

“Cognixion ONE’s combination of visual stimulation and EEG reading could profoundly change the means of communication for patients with physical and neurological impairments,” said Dr. Souhel Najjar, SVP and Executive Director of the Neurology Service Line at Northwell Health. “We look forward to collaborating with the Cognixion team as they develop this technology and assess its efficacy in addressing this significant challenge.”

“Cognixion’s technology has the potential to revolutionize the way patients with impairments can communicate in a variety of settings. We believe Northwell’s investment and expertise will support Cognixion’s expansion into health care provider markets,” said Rich Mulry, President and CEO of Northwell Holdings & Ventures.

Click here to find more information about Cognixion ONE and to submit interest for pre-order.

Using a Massage Gun for Better Sleep? Therabody And Biostrap Confirm with New Study Results

LOS ANGELES, Oct 2020 -- Therabody, formerly known as Theragun, best known for its groundbreaking percussive massage therapy devices, announced the final results of its research study in partnership with Biostrap. Therabody University, Therabody's education and research division, selected Biostrap Labs, the research division of the clinically validated wearable Biostrap, as its partner to conduct the structured intervention commercial study.

Final results of the study found that 87% of participants fell asleep faster after using a Theragun Percussive Massage Therapy device. 

For the study, 73 participants, ages 18 - 40, were asked to participate in a phase-based, standardized program utilizing both the Biostrap wrist-worn sensor and the Theragun Elite Percussive Massage Therapy device with the Therabody app. The five-week study was aimed to solidify Therabody's claims that Theragun Percussive Massage Therapy goes beyond reducing tension and pain, improving range of motion, increasing circulation, and maximizing recovery -- it also improves sleep quality, which is tied closely to overall health. This was the first research study looking at the effects of Theragun Percussive Therapy on sleep and other biometrics from wearable technology providing objective quantitative evidence for those effects.

"To date, we have completed 12 studies, eight at various stages of the research process, with an additional four in the planning stages," said Dr. Jason Wersland, Therabody founder and chief wellness officer. "Partnering with Biostrap Labs has provided us the opportunity to further validate the effectiveness of Theragun Percussive Massage Therapy devices and proves that not only does everyday use of a Theragun achieve whole-body wellness and recovery, but also helps support a better quality of life with a full night's rest and sleep after each use."

In the United States alone, more than 50 million people suffer from diagnosed sleep disorders. According to a recent survey on sleep habits, 67% of Americans said their sleep is worse now than before the pandemic.  While the health and wellness industry is saturated with products claiming to improve sleep, without scientific approval, very few show clinical proof of the effects like the Therabody and Biostrap Labs study results have proven.

"Biostrap Labs has the potential to change how consumers view health products. It will provide an opportunity for wellness brands to allow science to do the talking and validate their product claims which they can use to differentiate themselves within the $4 trillion global wellness industry," said Sameer Sontakey, Biostrap co-founder and CEO, adding that, "the Therabody study outcome far exceeded our expectations as to how much percussive therapy could improve sleep and recovery. Not to mention, despite the complexity of the study protocol, participant compliance remained above 90%, which also just showed how much consumers are likely to stick to a wellness regiment when it works."

STUDY DESIGN + RESULTS:
The purpose of the overall study was to provide objective and subjective evidence on the acute and chronic effects of two weeks of consistent percussive massage therapy application in a population of physically active adults.

Participants were asked to wear the Biostrap wrist-worn sensor throughout the entire duration of the study in order to provide continuous and reliable data measuring their sleep and recovery. For the first two weeks of the five-week trial, participants were asked to continue their everyday routines and not use Theragun Percussive Massage Therapy. In weeks three and four, participants were asked to maintain their normal routines, while utilizing the Theragun before going to bed based on the company's proprietary Sleep routine in the Therabody app. In week five, participants were asked to cease the use of the Theragun and Therabody app to understand and identify if any of the effects from the Theragun Percussive Massage Therapy intervention were long-term.

In addition to wearing the Biostrap and using the Theragun post-exercise and pre-sleep, participants were asked to complete clinically validated surveys (Brief Resilience Scale & Perceived Stress Scale) at the beginning and end of the study and a brief daily survey to assess perceived pain, discomfort, soreness, sleep quality, physical, and mental health symptoms.

As scientists analyzed the various biometrics, sleep measurements, and survey responses, they found that 70% of participants improved sleep efficiency with significantly fewer awakenings and sleep disruptions and 87% fell asleep faster (decreased sleep latency). Furthermore, the majority of participants improved their Biostrap Sleep Score, with benefits maintained one week after discontinued use. Through the use of percussive massage therapy, participants had a statistically significant average of 6% improvement in chronic heart rate variability (HRV), an increasingly popular objective measure of your body's readiness to perform, or how "recovered" you are. Lastly, 100% reported improvements in overall quality of life, among additional lifestyle improvements after the use of a Theragun immediately following exercise activity and 30-minutes before bed completing the Therabody app Sleep routine. All 73 participants' data were kept anonymous.

ABOUT BIOSTRAP
Biostrap is a science-driven platform developed to improve and optimize human health. Facilitating data collection through a proprietary and clinically reliable wrist-worn device, Biostrap utilizes machine learning to provide actionable data to improve sleep, recovery and performance. Biostrap analyzes each heartbeat for 29 unique parameters on its secure servers to ensure data reliability. Additionally, Biostrap is referenced in 14 publications and has 22 clinical studies validating its biometric measurements against gold standard medical diagnostics and use cases in specific medical conditions. Providing an individualized approach to consumers via an app and web dashboard, Biostrap also delivers customizable remote monitoring solutions for medical, clinical and fitness professionals. With its Biostrap Labs research division, Biostrap offers the opportunity for wellness companies to validate the efficacy of their products and services in a real-world setting.

Immunai came out of stealth mode Thursday, May 14th with two things: a mission to map the entire immune system and its functions using machine learning, and a capital infusion of $20 million in seed funding.

Viola Group and TLV Partners, two Israeli investment firms, led the seed round for Immunai. The company is building the largest proprietary data set in the world for clinical immunological data for better detection, diagnosis and treatment of disease. By leveraging single-cell technologies and machine-learning algorithms, Immunai has mapped out millions of immune cells and their functions, Immunai CEO Noam Solomon told Crunchbase News.

Over the last several years, cell therapies and cancer immunotherapies have become the latest innovation in treatment options. Immunotherapy uses the body’s immune system to target and destroy cancer cells.

Cancers, such as melanoma and lung cancer, have responded well to immunotherapy drugs, also known as immune checkpoint inhibitors. However, the immune system is complex and it is not yet known how drugs affect immune cells. And for costly cell therapies, a slight variation in cell therapy products can have a significant influence on a patient’s response to the therapy, Solomon said.

“Drugs that improve immune response to cancer are transformational for some patients, but don’t work in 50 (percent) to 70 percent of other patients,” he said. “We are trying to understand what therapies work—when they work—by measuring the immune system at high resolutions. We can then use those insights to improve the design of combination therapies.”

Immunai leverages single-cell technologies to profile cells from a blood sample. Its proprietary database then uses machine-learning algorithms to map the hundreds of cell types and their states to create an immune profile. That profile is then used to support biomarker discovery and insights that identify how a cell responds to its changing environment.

Solomon and Immunai CTO Luis Voloch founded the company in January 2019, and were later joined by cancer immunology scientist Ansu Satpathy, and data scientist Danny Wells, a member of the Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy.

The company has offices in San Francisco and Tel Aviv, Israel, and has already established clinical partnerships with 10 medical centers, as well as multiple commercial partnerships for cell therapy and checkpoint blockade with biopharma companies.

Immunai closed on the new round of funding three months ago and will use it to further the development of its technology and business functions while expanding its team of scientists, engineers and machine-learning experts, Solomon said.

“We have closed a substantial contract with a Fortune 100 company and will sign a few others in the next few weeks,” he said. “We are providing partnership models with hospitals, academia, biotech and biopharma partners with a goal of finding drug-resistant biomarkers and to help partners accelerate the FDA approval of their drugs.”

Posted by Wesley King - Biohacking Banker from Crunchbase News

Braid Health, a San Francisco, CA-based digital health innovation company that develops AI-powered diagnostic tools for radiology, closed $9m in seed and Series A funding rounds. The company intends to use the funds to continue to expand operations and its business reach, as well as increase its development efforts.

The company will use Seed and Series A investment to:

• Build the healthcare industry’s most advanced, AI-driven diagnostic imaging platform,

• Develop the Braid Network, a technology platform connecting a virtual network of healthcare specialists to improve care delivery and drive cost out of the system.

Founded by Kevin Quennesson and Alessandro Sabatelli, Braid Health provides urgent care centers, health systems and retail pharmacies with an AI-powered, end-to-end diagnostic collaboration platform for radiology and the healthcare industry.

The round was led by Lux Capital with participation from 01 Advisors, and Rucker Park Capital.

Wesley King - Biohacking Investment Banker

AVG’s new fund will invest in companies building a post-COVID world

MANCHESTER, N.H.-- Alumni Ventures Group (AVG), one of the world’s most active VC firms, announced the opening of a new fund focused on investing in aiming to accelerate the world’s recovery from the COVID-19 crisis. The Post-COVID Fund will invest in ventures that either directly or indirectly address the impacts of the virus and that demonstrate strong resilience (anti-fragility) in the face of COVID- and recession-related challenges.

Target sectors include healthcare, healthtech, technology, services, data monitoring and analysis, learning, payments, communications, entertainment, and others.

“We believe this pandemic has changed our world forever.”

- Michael Collins, CEO of Alumni Ventures Group.

“Trends will accelerate. Whole new markets will emerge. Industries will be reshaped, and new approaches taken as we start to tackle the problems and opportunities inherent in our post-COVID world. Out of this crisis, we expect to see dozens of new market leaders created who will be attractive investments in both the near and longer term. We think it’s an excellent time to be a venture investor focused on this new reality.”

The 10-year venture fund is targeting an initial raise of $10 million and will co-invest exclusively with established venture firms. The fund’s portfolio will include follow-on investments in AVG’s existing portfolio of more than 430 companies, as well as new investments vetted and secured by AVG’s 16 alumni funds and team of investment professionals.

AVG offers over 20 private venture funds, primarily for alumni from leading academic institutions including Harvard, Stanford, Cornell, MIT, Princeton, Yale, and Dartmouth. The Post-COVID Fund is open to any accredited investor.

As Collins noted, “The Post-COVID Fund is a response to the fact that this virus is affecting everyone. We think all communities should come together to support problem solvers. Both AVG and our investors want to help play a role in how society moves beyond COVID-19. It’s a chance to do good for the world and do well through your portfolio.”

AVG was ranked by PitchBook as the third most active fund in the U.S. in 2019. AVG funds are private, for-profit, and not affiliated with or sanctioned by any school. For more information about AVG, visit avgfunds.com.

>> Connect with Wesley King, the Biohacking Banker with a focus on HealthTech, Wellness, and Transformative Technologies.

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Day 1 #CES2020

So far, seeing a wide array of sexual health and wellness products. Major ad displays on banner and print highlighting vibrators! From scanning through the program, I’m excited to see companies working on aging technologies for seniors… especially those utilize IoT to support senior health at home.

The best deals and discounts on health and wellness devices and services. The top biohacking gifts from top researchers, and innovators.

Top Health, Wellness, and Biohacking Gifts 2019.