At the height of the pandemic, which hit senior living communities particularly hard, the effects of isolation on the aging population became the main concern. And a local startup found itself uniquely positioned to help while expanding its business along the way.
Dallas-based MyndVR, a health and wellness VR content platform, saw its business triple last year, Brickler said. After closing a nearly $3 million oversubscribed “seed-plus” round earlier this year, the company is gearing up for a $5 million Series A round to continue its trajectory.
“We just happened to be at the right place at the right time,” said Chris Brickler, MyndVR’s CEO.
Launched in 2016, MyndVR provides hardware and a subscription content platform with immersive experiences like walking along the beach or playing with puppies. Brickler said that as the pandemic swept through senior living communities last year, one containment method was isolation, which in seniors can lead to several other health issues. He found himself no longer explaining the value of its product to customers.
“What happened was people became aware and saw this technology really can help solve for isolation,” Brickler said. “That’s what we were talking to people about before the pandemic, but the pandemic really made that crystal clear.”
Brickler said a study of communities using MyndVR showed about 80 percent of residents have a positive or neutral attitude towards its use. He points to the aging generation’s history with seeing the development of new products – from color televisions to the internet – as a reason for its adoption rate.
That has allowed MyndVR to see 100 percent revenue growth last year. Although Brickler declined to disclose specific figures, he said he expects the company’s revenue growth rate to continue. The company’s headcount has also recently expanded. Over the last four months, MyndVR has added 10 members to its team, bringing its total to 15 to accommodate its expansion from operating in 25 states at the beginning of 2020 to 47 states, in addition to Australia and Canada.
MyndVR’s growth was propelled partly by a $2.8 million funding round the company recently closed on. Initially, Brickler said the company set out to raise $2 million. Part of that money came from a crowdfunding initiative the startup launched earlier this year, which netted it more than $166,000 from 401 investors. The majority of the rest, Brickler said, came from family offices in Texas and Chicago, as well as impact funds and angel groups like the Cowtown Angels. That funding brought MyndVR’s total to around $4.4 million.
“Any startup has to be laser-focused on dominating a niche. You can’t get too spread out when you’re a startup,” Brickler said. “So, our growth in terms of employees, infrastructure, all the marketing tools and our product is all for this massive growth of older adults that are moving into retirement and moving into later stages of life.”
While not the specific focus of the initiative, MyndVR also sees recent validation of its tech through a research partnership with Stanford University’s Virtual Human Interaction Lab, which came about due to the number of users on its platform. The research, which is looking for 1,500 respondents over the next four to six months, aims to identify how virtual reality affects mood in seniors. It is also looking at if the adoption of VR technology makes them more willing to adopt other technologies and if it improves the relationship with the person’s caregiver. The initiative kicked off last month. Also working on the project is AT&T, which uses 5G tech to transmit data from MyndVR’s devices to researchers at Stanford.
“That kind of experiential treatment is what we’ve really homed in on… Stanford is taking a research lens to that by creating the largest sample that’s ever been done to prove what we have been doing essentially,” Brickler said. “We haven’t seen anything so far that would not validate the fact that MyndVR improves the lives of these people, changes mood, improves behavior, those types of things.”
As MyndVR looks to continue its growth, with Brickler saying he expects to see the business increase ten-fold, the company recently launched an at-home version of its product to capture the large share of the senior market that opts not to go into a senior or assisted living community. Brickler said the company has recently inked new deals that will expand its reach to New Zealand and the U.K. He also teased a “revolutionary adjunct” to MyndVR that the company is unveiling in the next three months. MyndVR is kicking off a $5 million Series A funding effort starting in October to fuel that growth.
“What we want to do is take a product that we know really works, move that product and help as many lives as possible,” Brickler said.
