This article originally appeared here.
BrainCheck, a mobile brain health tracking solution, announced today that it has completed a $1.5 million round of funding to deliver on its promise of bringing its innovative brain performance platform to people everywhere. Additional funding led by True Wealth Ventures and other contributors brings the total seed funding to $4.5 million since the company was founded in 2015.
This most recent round of funding will support BrainCheck as the company expands global sales and delivery across its multi-million dollar cognitive health pipeline. The company currently empowers 15,000 customers with its world-class brain health tracking solution including individuals, athletic teams, senior organizations, and doctors around the world.
BrainCheck is the result of 20 years of research conducted at the Eagleman Laboratory for Perception and Action at Baylor College of Medicine. As one of the few accessible cognitive health applications on the market, BrainCheck is positioned to change millions of lives by helping individuals better manage their overall brain health and recover from traumatic brain injuries.
“Our vision is to empower people everywhere to take control of their cognitive health by making our platform accessible, simple, and interactive. As a result of this funding, we are now able to accelerate our growth, expand our channels, and deliver on our promise of democratizing brain health,” said Dr. Yael Katz, Co-founder and CEO of BrainCheck. “Whether the concern is a head injury, memory loss, or cognitive impairment, we’re scaling our ability to deliver rapid and reliable cognitive health monitoring for families, caregivers, and clinicians to positively affect change and improve outcomes.”
Today only 2% of venture dollars go to women-led startups and 17% to those with a woman on the leadership team. “We’re thrilled that BrainCheck CEO, Dr. Yael Katz, is joining this community of venture-backed, women-led businesses who have historically received less investor attention. BrainCheck illustrates a massive opportunity to have more women driving healthcare innovation,” said Kerry Rupp, True Wealth Ventures’ General Partner.
Women’s health products and technologies represent an overlooked market opportunity due to the lack of women investors in venture capital. True Wealth Ventures believes there are clear advantages for companies with women on the management team to design products for, sell to, and service women’s healthcare needs. More women-led venture capital firms and women leaders targeting healthcare will bring greater opportunities to solve unaddressed patient needs.
BrainCheck occupies a unique position to deliver cognitive health solutions to the millions of women suffering from brain trauma and dementia. In sports such as soccer, concussions are 1.5 times more common in females than males, yet nearly all concussion research has been done on men. Of the estimated 5.5 million Americans living with Alzheimer’s, two-thirds of them are women. All while two-thirds of dementia caregivers are women.
In concussion research there is a need for women’s brains for study due to insufficient research into female concussions. Maria Carrillo, chief science officer for the Alzheimer’s Association, has called on researchers to address the gaps in our understanding of increased dementia risk in women. With its investment in BrainCheck, True Wealth Ventures is advancing solutions that help female patients, their families, and caretakers to quickly and proactively assess their brain health data with an affordable, convenient, and personalized solution.
“The accumulation of women impacted by cognitive health conditions, either directly or as primary caretakers, lends a clear advantage to women healthcare leaders to better serve the needs of today’s female patients,” said Kerry Rupp. “In the United States, women make over 80% of healthcare decisions for their families. Using BrainCheck to monitor their cognitive health, women and their families are more prepared to understand and track what is happening in their brain and act on that information.”
As part of the announcement, True Wealth Ventures’ General Partner, Kerry Rupp, will join BrainCheck’s Board of Directors. Other board members include Dr. Yael Katz, Dr. David Eagleman, Dr. George McLendon, and Daniel Cotlar.
About BrainCheck
BrainCheck’s goal is to democratize cognitive health by bringing its interactive testing platform to people everywhere. Available on iPhone, iPad and desktop, and in English and Spanish, BrainCheck assesses multiple cognitive domains in minutes and delivers results that can be shared with family members, caregivers, and clinicians. BrainCheck is used by individuals, athletic teams, senior organizations, and doctors around the world, and is spreading rapidly. The platform also includes special content by renowned neuroscientist, author and speaker Dr. David Eagleman to give people insights into the inner workings of the brain and a better understanding of their brain health. To learn more, please visit http://www.braincheck.com.
About True Wealth Ventures
True Wealth Ventures is a start-up venture capital fund for women with ideas to change the world. Founded by Sara Brand and Kerry Rupp, the fund focuses on women-led companies in the consumer health and sustainability sectors. Companies founded by women have consistently demonstrated stronger returns than the market but are still under-represented as a share of VC investments, and female founders are uniquely positioned to craft consumer propositions given that women make 85% of all household purchasing and 80% of healthcare decisions. True Wealth Ventures is one of just 6 women-led early-stage VC funds in the country that is also focused on female entrepreneurs and the only one based in Texas. For more information, visit http://www.truewealthvc.com.
