Belfast-based medtech company BrainWaveBank, which has developed what it describes as a “Fitbit for the brain”, has raised £1.1 million (€1.2 million) as it looks to further commercialise its ground-breaking technology.
The company was founded in January 2015 by Ronan Cunningham, Brian Murphy, Siggi Saevarsson and Urs Streidl. It has developed a wireless electroencephalogram (EEG) headset and proprietary software platform that use advanced analytics and machine learning to measure cognitive fitness.
Users wearing the headsets are asked to preform simple cognitive tasks with the results tracked via the software platform to spot early signs of neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s, and psychiatric conditions like depression and schizophrenia.
BrainWaveBank has secured a number of contracts with pharmaceutical and biotech companies to use its platform to evaluate cognition in patients and gain insights into the effects of drugs in early-stage clinical evaluations of new therapies.
This latest fundraising brings total equity investment to date for the company to £3.7 million (€4.1 million). It has also secured £2 million (€2.2 million) in grants from Invest Northern Ireland and Innovate UK.
Accelerate development
The funding round was led by Edinburgh-based Par Equity, which has also previously backed Ballymena-headquartered Plotbox. It led a £1.6 million (1.8 million) fundraise in BrainWaveBank last year. Other backers include Techstart Ventures, the Angel CoFund and British Business Investments.
Mr Cunningham, BrainWaveBank’s chief executive, said the funding would be used to accelerate development of the company’s platform.
“This investment will enable us to continue to develop and commercialise our cutting-edge technology that addresses a major unmet need in the development of novel therapies that can significantly reduce costs of care and improve patient outcomes for millions of people worldwide,” he said.
BrainWaveBank employs 18 engineers, scientists, and commercialisation experts, more than half of whom have advanced degrees in psychology, computational neuroscience, data science, and engineering.
