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Virtuleap has secured $2.5 million to improve brain health using virtual reality and AI through its product, Enhance VR. GED Ventures Portugal invested in Virtuleap, which focuses on healthtech and edtech. The startup has created a variety of virtual reality games designed to assess and enhance cognitive skills like memory, attention, motor control, and spatial orientation.
Virtuleap says it can provide crucial clinical insights for brain health screening and profiling by collecting data on a single platform. Neuroscientists have designed these short, engaging games, which translate neuropsychological assessments into interactive experiences analyzed by AI learning tools.
The Enhance VR program offers a “gym for the mind” that could help with learning challenges such as ADHD and other cognitive disorders. The exercises are categorized into seven areas: memory, attention, information processing, mental flexibility, problem-solving, motor control, and spatial orientation.
Virtuleap is also developing a second product, Cogniclear VR, set to launch in 2024. This tool is intended for cognitive screening, co-designed with partners like Lusíadas Saúde and Roche Portugal, and may detect early cognitive disorders to enable timely interventions for conditions like Alzheimer’s.
CEO Amir Bozorgzadeh mentioned that the investment allows them to enhance and market their VR cognitive solutions, especially with an impending “cognition crisis.” The company’s AI learning algorithms analyze extensive psychometric, physical, and physiological data to link cognitive performance to mental health.
GED Ventures Portugal led the investment round, emphasizing its commitment to technology that improves health. Bibi Sattar Marques, a partner at GED Ventures Portugal, highlighted their mission to merge technology and well-being, aiming to advance accessible mental health solutions.
GED is an independent international financial group managing over a billion euros in assets across venture, private equity, and infrastructure sectors in Europe, the USA, and South America.
Enhance VR has attracted over 60,000 early users without any marketing and is available in major VR app stores in five languages: English, Spanish, Portuguese, Japanese, and Chinese, with German, French, and Dutch coming by early 2024.
Virtuleap has demonstrated its research commitment with four published papers, including a promising pilot study that improved processing speed in students with ADHD. The company has also secured $1.8 million in commercial agreements with partners like Penumbra, HP, and BehaVR, highlighting the demand for its innovative technology.
In collaboration with Roche, Virtuleap is developing Cogniclear VR, a tool poised to transform early detection of cognitive illnesses with unmatched speed and accuracy.