- Digital health company Neurotrack announced it raised $21 million in Series C funding led by existing investor Khosla Ventures
- Including this round, Neurotrack has raised over $50 million, of which $3.5 million was from grants from the NIH
Neurotrack, a digital health company, announced it has raised $21 million in Series C funding. Including this funding round, Neurotrack has raised more than $50 million — which includes over $3.5 million in grants from the National Institutes of Health and a fast track grant worth up to $3.3 million from the National Institute on Aging.
This round of funding was led by existing investor Khosla Ventures, Dai-ichi Life, and SOMPO Holdings also provided new strategic investments and there was participation from existing investors Sozo Ventures, Rethink Impact, and AME Cloud Partners.
This new round of funding will be used for advancing the company’s mission for changing how people manage their cognitive health and drive adoption of its Memory Health Program. Plus it will continue the development and partnerships in global markets.
Neurotrack’s Memory Health Program has been essential in the fight against Alzheimer’s. There are more than an estimated 50 million people around the world living with Alzheimer’s today and more than 130 million expected by 2050. And Neurotrack found a way to bring cognitive health tools to millions around the world.
“As the global crisis around Alzheimer’s continues to grow, the private sector is joining government and nonprofits to address the problem in their markets. In Japan, for example, traditional insurance companies are developing novel solutions that incorporate Neurotrack’s products to advance better memory health among its population,” said Neurotrack co-founder and CEO Elli Kaplan in a statement. “These partnerships are innovative models that we hope to replicate in other markets, enabling traditional insurance companies to create new markets while helping to address the Alzheimer’s crisis. And now they’re also investing in our company, so these companies have two ways of doing well by doing good.”
Neurotrack partnered with Dai-ichi Life last year — which is the second largest life insurance company in Japan for making its products available to customers as part of its new dementia insurance product. In the first part of 2019, SOMPO conducted a 16-week pilot with Neurotrack where over 550 of SOMPO’s employees took Neurotrack’s test and followed along with the Memory Health Program for four months. Plus Neurotrack and SOMPO are now working on deepening and extending their partnership. With each Neurotrack partnership, Dai-ichi and SOMPO are expecting to give millions of people in Japan access to tools for assessing and managing their cognitive health.
“We are excited about the partnership between Neurotrack and Dai-ichi Life, and our joint continued dedication to lowering the growth rate of dementia in Japan,” added Yasumasa Iwai — the Executive Officer in Charge of Insurtech at Dai-ichi Life. “We believe in the power of Neurotrack’s products which is why we are a customer and now an investor.”
With each Neurotrack partnership, Dai-ichi and SOMPO are expecting to give millions of people in Japan access to tools for assessing and managing their cognitive health. The Japanese government has made it a national focus to reduce the number of people with dementia by 6% among people in their 70s by 2025. And insurance companies like Dai-ichi and SOMPO are helping the world’s largest aging population. This is especially important since the number of Alzheimer’s patients in Japan is expected to rise to 13 million people by 2025.
“As a society, we’re behind the curve in tackling the Alzheimer’s pandemic. A majority of adults age 65 and over worldwide do not receive cognitive assessments on a regular basis, and without a cure or vaccine on the horizon, we’re looking at a growth rate that will threaten communities around the world,” explained Samir Kaul — a founding General Partner at Khosla Ventures. “Managing one’s cognitive health must be easier to do and begin earlier in life so that we can halt the disease’s growth rate. And we believe Neurotrack has developed a platform that can deliver this on a global scale.”
As Alzheimer’s is quickly becoming one of the greatest healthcare challenges of our generation, the impact on communities around the world can be reduced by making tools for cognitive health more accessible. And Neurotrack said it will harness its learnings from the work in Japan to identify additional partnerships in international markets to address the Alzheimer’s crisis, including the U.S. and China — which currently has the world’s largest population of people with dementia.
“Neurotrack has built an incredible integrative platform that is transforming our battle with Alzheimer’s,” explained Rethink Impact founder and managing partner Jenny Abramson, Founder & Managing Partner of Rethink Impact. “Elli’s two decades of experience in the private sector and in government are helping her scale this solution to the millions of people suffering from cognitive decline around the world. We couldn’t be more excited to continue to support Neurotrack, given both the financial opportunity and the impact they are already having on this critical disease.”
Neurotrack was co-founded in 2012 by Kaplan along with leading researchers Stuart Zola, PhD, Elizabeth Buffalo, PhD, and Cecelia Manzanares. And it has published its data in five academic journals and authored one academic review paper. Plus it has been named the Best Health Company at SXSW and DEMO and participated in the Rock Health Accelerator program.
