Mindstrong might have flown a little too close to the sun with its promise of detecting early signs of mental illness through smartphone data, and it’s now shuttering operations after selling off its core technology to former competitor SonderMind.
Once a venture capital darling, Mindstrong wooed investors on the idea of an app that could serve as a “smoke alarm” for mental health issues by scanning smartphones for “digital biomarkers” such as erratic scrolling and typing errors.
That turned out to be a tall order. A recent investigation by STAT revealed that investors were leaning on Mindstrong to commercialize the technology too soon, and that the company lost momentum after the departure of key founders.
- As Mindstrong’s core technology struggled to get up to speed, the company pivoted to providing virtual therapy with a focus on serious mental illness.
- That road was equally rocky, causing Mindstrong to lay off a majority of its employees and stop treating patients earlier this year.
Enter SonderMind, a full-service virtual therapy platform that leverages machine learning to match patients with an ideal therapist for in-person or virtual appointments.
- Mindstrong’s purpose-built EHR and digital biomarker tech will help SonderMind offer more specialized care journeys and improve its ability to treat patients with serious mental illness.
- The move comes just months after SonderMind acquired Total Brain to enhance its user-guided wellness tools, and less than two years after it acquired Qntfy to unlock more value from its patient and provider data.
The Takeaway
Mental health remains one of the hottest corners of the digital health market, but outside of a few notable examples like the Headspace-Ginger merger, we haven’t seen a huge wave of M&A as valuations come back down to Earth. SonderMind now has a chance to be the next success story, assuming it can integrate its acquisitions into a cohesive offering for everything from wellness exercises to psychiatric care.
