Toronto and Los Angeles, Calif.-based neurotech startup has set its sights on reducing intense stress and burnout in a convenient, cost-effective, and discreet way. The mental healthcare-focused company has secured $1.
7 million CAD ($1.2 million USD) in pre-seed funding and support from a slew of healthtech investors to fuel the launch of its next-generation wearable device, which it plans to roll out this fall. The company is led by a pair of former clinical anxiety disorder patients in Canadian chief scientist Alison Smith, a neuroscientist by training, and CEO Ami Lebendiker, a longtime Google product manager who helped bring its Pixel phones to market.
Roga rolled out its first app-connected, wearable over-ear device last year. Since then, the startup has seen some success selling to other companies as a tool for reducing stress among their employee base. Given the stigma surrounding mental healthcare, discretion has been a focus for Roga, and this is reflected in its existing offering.
“It’s very discreet, and yet very fashionable,” Smith told BetaKit in an exclusive interview. “[Other people] can’t tell that someone is wearing a wearable device to help them to emotionally regulate. It looks like a pair of Apple headphones.
” Roga’s existing wearable, which it is currently selling for $269 USD as a wellness device, delivers “a very specific, low-level, gentle electrical stimulation to the peripheral nerve behind each of the ears” that “sends a feedback.
