Apps tackling mental health and cognition have taken off in the past few years: from video therapy to meditation training to resources for suicide and substance abuse. According to Pitchbook, VC funding has increased ten times since 2009 and is on track to exceed $500 million this year.
Boston’s a bit behind the trend. It’s home to a bunch of startups combining tech with physical health, fitness and healthcare solutions, but not as many that help wrangle the brain. Some that start in Boston or Cambridge, like emotional support app Ginger.io, head west as they grow. But the field is slowly expanding to include some new and creative solutions. We’ve rounded up the top apps created in Greater Boston that provide wellness and support.
Billed as “Mindfulness for Real Life,” 10% Happier promises not to use wacky crystals or robes to make you feel better. After news anchor Dan Harris had a panic attack on-air in 2004, he discovered self-care through meditation, wrote two books, started a podcast, and put all his findings in this app. The app was launched with cofounder Change Collective in 2015 and specialized early on in concrete science-based tools. It offers a video library full of interviews between Harris and experts, courses that update regularly, and guided meditations that are practical and un-fluffy. There’s also a live chat feature to connect users to mindfulness coaches.
Kids learn through games. Mightier takes advantage of that with bioresponsive systems that help kids learn emotional regulation as they play. A heart monitor tracks their responses to the games and the app teaches breathing and emotional control as the games get harder and more stressful. Clinicians are available as Mightier Coaches to help parents track and manage their kid’s progress. Dr. Jason Kahn founded the company in 2016 while he was doing work at Boston Children’s Hospital to help kids with emotional dysregulation. Neuromotion Labs partnered with Boston Children’s and Harvard Medical School to develop the program.
Hospitals and rehabs can help addicts learn to stay sober—but it’s hard to maintain once they go back to regular life. That’s where Hey, Charlie comes in. Like a friend who offers a non-judgmental, helping nudge, it’s a behavior modification app that runs continuously and responds to environmental triggers. Visiting a location that’s connected to drug use could generate a question: “Are you sure you should be here?” It also logs data so clinicians can help if they see risky behavior. The original idea spawned during MIT Hacking Medicine's Grand Hack in 2016 and started piloting in a clinical setting in August 2017. This past February Hey, Charlie won a start-up competition with the National Institute on Drug Abuse.
In 2015, MedRhythms CEO Brian Harris partnered with the Brain Injury Association of Massachusetts and the Boston University Aphasia Resource Center to launch a new neurologic music therapy (NMT) app. NMT applies specialized music therapy to help bring back language, cognition and movement. Patients who’ve suffered brain injury or impairment often see big improvements with NMT but it’s a recent innovation (the first certification programs started in 1999) and not offered widely yet. MedRhythms provides trained NMTs to provide therapy at a patient’s home or with full facilities contracts. They’ve completed almost 10,000 hours of NMT to date.
There are a few Boston-based wellness apps for employees: Clear Connector, Virgin Pulse, Wellable, and Wellness Workdays, to name a few. But MeYou Health’s a bit different. The app’s actually made up of several apps that add up to holistic health and wellness, including their popular Daily Challenge for habit-building, Hello 200 for weight loss, Walkadoo to pair with other step-counting tech, and Quitnet to stop smoking. All are free and open to any user and can also be bundled for companies—MeYou Health counts Blue Shield of Massachusetts as one of their clients. They’ve scaled up quickly and have been rated a Boston Globe top place to work. In May, they partnered with OneDigital, the largest provider of employee benefits in the nation, for tailored wellness solutions for companies of all sizes.
Cogito primarily uses AI to help representatives deliver better customer service. But their app Cogito Companion (which is only available through providers) has a more therapeutic function. By analyzing users’ voice in 30-second audio diary entries, it assesses their mood and analyzes changes to detect distress and depression. It also can analyze calls and texts to identify emotional stress like isolation and send the information to providers. In February 2016, Cogito paired with Mass General as a part of MGH’s MoodNetwork, a nationwide network for bipolar disorder and depression sufferers. They raised a $15 million Series B round led by Boston venture capital firm OpenView in 2016 and $5 million in a debt offering in 2018.
Pavlok uses technology and behavioral change to help change habits. They’re most well-known for their ShockClock, the wearable alarm clock that literally zaps you to wake you up on time. They’re now launching the Shock Clock 2, a wearable alarm that does even more to train your brain to wake up at the same time every morning. A wearable device works with their app to track users’ sleep pattern, train them to wake up at the optimal time, and lets their support system know if they’re hitting snooze instead to foster accountability. So far, they’ve raised nearly $20,000 on Indiegogo.
Kids with autism struggle with communication, and parents can have a tough time getting through to them. Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Ron Suskind wrote a bestselling book about his family’s experience with their autistic son, who used his love of Disney movies to find the words to communicate his feelings. Suskind raised $7.1 million in 2016 for an app that make use of similar techniques. With Sidekicks, kids choose an avatar that speaks for the parent; parents can type words in a chat function, which the avatar speaks aloud, and can send videos to their kid that taps into shared interests and passions. Parents can add the student’s teacher and therapist for expert analysis on how their kid’s doing.
2015 50 on Fire finalist meQuilibrium aims to build resilience, one of the key factors in helping someone survive stress and build wellbeing by recovering quickly from setbacks. The app is clinically validated and works with employees: users can create an account through their employer or health plan, get a personal assessment, and develop a customized plan that focuses on habits, triggers, and thinking styles. In May 2017, meQuilibrium partnered with WebMD Health Services to integrate with their platform and coaching and in October 2017, they raised an $8.2 million round.
Happier works like a personal mindfulness coach, which makes sense: founder Nataly Kogan is an entrepreneur who’s dedicated her life to helping others find happiness. Kogan brings her insights from her book Happier Now and her online course and applies them to the app, which is also available through the Apple Watch to practice wellness on the go. At its core, Happier encourages users to collect and share happy moments in a more intimate and private setting than other social apps. Then, users can be part of a larger positive community and take part in interactive courses. Since 2012, they’ve grown to a million users and counting.
Sober Grid is also an online community—but it’s centered on productivity and healing for those battling addiction. The app helps people find resources like doctors and therapists who can help as well as advice to get or maintain recovery, but it’s also a powerful tool to help addicts connect with each other. Founder Beau Mann says that in many cases, Sober Grid has helped save users’ lives by suggesting timely resources or decreasing feelings of isolation. This February, Mann announced that the app is bringing AI to its services to help predict relapses.
