Sword Health, a startup focused on helping people deal with pain through digital services, is expanding to mental health and has raised additional capital to boost their growth.
The 10 -year -old company is presenting MIND, which uses a combination of artificial intelligence, hardware and human mental health professionals to treat patients with mild depression and anxiety. Sword said the mind will help users access to care when they need it, instead of during sporadic dates of an hour.
“It really is an advance in terms of how we address mental health, and this is only possible because we have ia,” said Sword CEO, Virgílio Bento, CNBC in an interview.
Also on Tuesday, Sword announced a financing round of $ 40 million, directed by General Catalyst, in an agreement that values the company at $ 4 billion. The new cash will support Sword's efforts to grow through acquisitions, as well as its global expansion and development of the AI model, the company said.
The round included the participation of Khosla Ventures, Comcast Companies and other companies. Sword had raised a total of more than $ 450 million as of September, according to Pitchbook.
Financing lands as the digital health market shows signs of recovery after a difficult stretching after COVID, when the increase in inflation, higher interest rates and a return to activities in person led to a dramatic retreat in the industry.
Earl this month, Voting healthwhich offers virtual care programs to support patients with chronic conditions such as diabetes and hypertension, maintained their debut in Nasdaq, although the action is quoted below their initial price of public offer. Weeks before that, supplier of digital physiotherapy Hinge health Hit the New York Stock Exchange. The shares operate a few dollars above their offer price.
Sword, which was founded in Portugal and now has its headquarters in New York, offers tools for digital physiotherapy, pelvic health and movement health to help patients control pain from home and avoid other treatments, such as opioids and surgery. Patients can register in the sword if backed by your employer or health plan.
MIND users will receive a wrist laptop called “Banda M” that can measure environmental and physiological signals such as heart rate, sleep and lighting in a user's environment. The mind also includes access to an AI care agent and human health professionals, which can provide services such as traditional conversation therapy.
Bento said that a human is always involved with the care of a patient and that AI is not making clinical decisions.
For example, if a patient has an anxiety attack, Sword's AI will recognize it and could ask a doctor to approve some physical activity for later that day to help with recovery. The clinician would approve the physical activity that suggested the AI, or the annular and proposes something else.
“Today you have an anxiety problem, and the way you are going to handle is talk about that a week within now? That simply does not work,” Bento said. “Mental health must always be on, where you have a problem now, and you can have immediate help at the time.”
Bento said Sword has some customers who have been on a waiting list for the mind, and the startup has been testing the offer with some of its design partners. He said the first users have approved the personalized approach and convenience of Mind.
“We believe that the future of how mental health will be delivered in the future, by us and other companies,” said Bento. “The AI plays a very important role, but the use of AI, and I think this is very important, it must be used in a very intelligent way.”
Disclosure: Comcast, Father of Comcast Ventures, is the owner of NBCuniversal, CNBC parent company.
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