NewDays, a Seattle startup using a generative AI therapy to treat people with mild dementia, has added $4.5 million to a recent seed funding round.
The company confirmed the raise this week after GeekWire spotted a regulatory filing. Total funding is now $11.5 million after NewDays previously announced a $7 million investment in early September.
The company offers telehealth visits with clinicians once or twice a month combined with frequent, personalized conversations with an AI companion called Sunny. The AI-led conversations provide specific types of therapies including cognitive stimulation, cognitive training and cognitive rehabilitation.
Co-founder and CEO founder Babak Parviz launched the startup last year with Chief Innovation Officer Daniel Kelly. Parviz was a vice president at Amazon where he led the company’s Grand Challenge initiative to discover new areas of operation. Prior to that role, he was at Google X and ran the Google Glass team. Kelly previously oversaw engineering teams at Amazon and Google X.
NewDays plans to use the fresh cash to increase its investment in artificial intelligence technology and growth.
The startup, which charges a monthly $99 subscription fee and also accepts health insurance, says it is generating revenue, but is not yet sharing information related to how many customers it has attracted.
Seattle’s Madrona Venture Group and San Francisco’s General Catalyst are early backers.
Parviz and Kelly appeared on the “Founded & Funded” podcast this week (below) with Madrona Managing Director Tim Porter in which they reflected on why now is the moment to tackle cognitive decline with AI, blending scientific rigor with human empathy.
“There was a massive unmet need, and there was a radically new technology available that could bring medically proven interventions to a large number of people,” Parviz said.
The conversation underscored how the pair’s experience at Amazon and Google shaped their drive for “meaningful velocity” — moving fast not just to innovate, but to make a measurable difference in people’s lives.
Read the full article here
