Spiritune is a company taking a data-driven and scientific approach to music and brain health by creating and delivering audio solutions in the form of emotionally targeted listening programs for stress reduction, emotional well-being, productivity, and performance. Pulse 2.0 interviewed Spiritune founder Jamie Pabst to learn more.
Jamie Pabst’s Background
Pabst grew up with a mother with severe hearing loss and a sister who pursued a degree in music therapy. And Pabst said:
“I have always been impressed by music’s ability to affect the brain in a way that supports our mental health and other neurological conditions. When I started being impacted by stress and anxiety in my former finance career in NYC, I realized there was a significant lack of accessible and helpful mental health support in the workplace. Understanding that music could solve some of these barriers to mental health at work because of its capacity to shift emotions and cognitive function very quickly catalyzed my interest to explore music more deeply and figure out a way to modernize traditional music therapy in a way that could fit into busy lifestyles more easily through personalization and digital music streaming.”
“This music exploration allowed me to tap into my educational background in Journalism and my love for research while working with some of the brightest minds in music therapy and neuroscience. I also began DJing to explore music in an experiential way, adapting music for different environments. The combination of these personal and professional circumstances and explorations led to the genesis of Spiritune, which we launched at the height of the pandemic when people were isolated and really benefited from our digital therapeutic music application, and since then, we’ve helped thousands of users across the globe to address their mental health in an easy, accessible, effective and culturally relevant way.”
Formation Of Spiritune
How did the idea for Spiritune come together? And Pabst shared:
“When I struggled with my own stress and anxiety in my former finance career, I witnessed head-on the lack of accessible mental health resources that can address anxiety quickly and effectively. Realizing the potential for music therapy and music streaming to combine in a way that allows people to access music-based mental health support anytime, anywhere, I turned to some of the leading academics, such as Dr. Oliver Sacks, whose work had inspired me, to form a clinical knowledge base that could underpin a digital therapeutic music intervention. My clinical inquiries led to meeting Dr. Concetta Tomaino, who had worked with Dr. Sacks for 25 years, and Dr. Daniel Bowling from Stanford School of Medicine. They became Spiritune’s leading science advisors, and their vast knowledge and experience were instrumental in forming the knowledge base that became the catalyst to productizing what became Spiritune, a scientifically informed digital music therapy application that modernizes the way people engage in their mental health.”
Favorite Memory
What has been your favorite memory working for the company so far? Pabst reflected:
“There’s been a lot of great memories so far, but I’d say a big moment has been working with military populations through the US Dept of Veterans Affairs and bringing Spiritune’s music-based mental health app to VA populations and thousands of military families to address stress, suicide rates and barriers to mental health support.”
Challenges Faced
What challenges have you faced in building the company? Pabst acknowledged:
“As a female founder, I can say I’ve felt the struggles with access to capital (only 4% of VC funding goes to female founders), and the current macroeconomic climate hasn’t helped. Though on the flip side in terms of business opportunity, Spiritune has never been more relevant and timely. Traditional mental health support is very costly, and given that Spiritune is a very inexpensive mental health alternative, we’ve had a lot of receptivity and opportunities open up as a result of people and organizations looking for lower-cost, effective alternatives to traditional solutions.”
Core Products
What are the company’s core products and features? Pabst explained:
“The core Spiritune product is a digital music therapy application. We have an iOS, Android, and macOS app that features a vast library of personalized therapeutic music that helps people with needs ranging from anxiety, fatigue, brain fog, focus, and sleep, along with an integration into Apple Health kit for health monitoring.”
Evolution Of Spiritune’s Technology
How has the company’s technology evolved since launching? Pabst noted:
“At launch, Spiritune served iOS users only with human-composed music following principles of music therapy and neuroscience. Since then, Spiritune has expanded our music production to also incorporate AI, as well as distribution to include Android and macOS users – and there are a lot more exciting things to come on our roadmap.”
Significant Milestones
What have been some of the company’s most significant milestones? Pabst cited:
“Today, Spiritune has helped thousands of users across broad populations relieve stress, anxiety, and other aspects of mental health. A recent significant milestone was receiving a VA grant that acknowledges the effectiveness of our solution for helping veterans and their families dealing with severe stress and crisis situations. Another recent achievement was receiving 3 Cannes Lions for our work in creating a scientifically informed lullaby for the ‘Frequencies of Peace’ project to help Syrian refugee children calm their nerves and get better sleep.”
“Lastly, we’re proud of a big milestone in our mission to use music as medicine through a digital primary care partnership where Spiritune is available for all behavioral health clients experiencing stress and anxiety. There are a lot more significant milestones with employers and partners that will significantly expand our distribution in the coming months that we are really excited about, so stay tuned.”
Customer Success Stories
After asking Pabst about customer success stories, Pabst replied:
“Our success is directly linked to our customers’ success. Our employer clients are typically innovative and understand that taking care of their employees’ mental health gives them a competitive business advantage. One particular employer client has been extremely devoted to organizational health and workplace wellness, and they became an early client of Spiritune. We worked together to rollout Spiritune seamlessly to their employees, where we quickly saw super high engagement and outcomes data, and that employer went on to win #1 best place to work by Built In that year and is also a leader in their business category.”
“On the end-user side of things, we have helped 92% of our users reach their desired emotional state, and we consistently receive truly incredible feedback from individual users using Spiritune to help with a broad range of conditions ranging from anxiety, stress, focus, sleep, and more. We are truly motivated hearing stories like, “I use Spiritune daily, and it really helps my CPTSD symptoms. It works so well to calm my anxiety and panic attacks,” and others like a new mom who told us, “I’ve been struggling with focus at work, and I use Spiritune to lock in my focus and immediately feel my anxiety levels plummet allowing me to have a super productive work session.” These success stories motivate us every day to reach more people so they can experience the same results as our current users.”
Funding/Revenue
After asking Pabst about funding and revenue, she replied:
“We have extremely supportive and experienced angels and venture investors at this early stage of the business. Spiritune has raised $1.7 million to date across investors that have experience in health tech, mental health, finance, music, and startups more broadly. We are in the early stages of commercialization and have phenomenal early clients, engagement, and outcomes data to support our growth in the coming months and years ahead.”
Total Addressable Market
What total addressable market (TAM) size is the company pursuing? Pabst assessed:
“We are addressing the $205 billion Behavioral Health market. The youth market (under 25) is propelling a steady rise in mental health and addiction spending, and traditional mental health solutions are costly. Thus, employers are faced with a tricky balancing act of supporting the mental health of employees while also trying to curb the expense of offering mental health benefits. Spiritune is a lower cost modality that can be just as effective and more engageable than expensive traditional mental health modalities, so there is an extensive opportunity for us to capture the market in a scaleable, cost-effective way.”
Differentiation From The Competition
What differentiates the company from its competition? Pabst affirmed:
“Our biggest differentiator is our science. We’ve guided the technology transfer from lab and clinical settings into an easy-to-use app that’s broadly applicable in daily life. The science also guides our music creation process using a unique combination of human composers supported by AI following strict scientific parameters of music therapy and neuroscience which allows for a level of quality, reliability, and personalization in our product that otherwise doesn’t exist in the market. And that shows up in our outcomes – 92% of users say Spiritune is effective in helping them manage their emotions. And it also shows up in scientific research – we’re about to release a study conducted by researchers out of NYU’s Music & Auditory Research Lab which demonstrates compelling outcomes in emotion and executive function compared to other popular modalities. Not to mention, Spiritune audio is a passive intervention that saves people time and energy in a way that other modalities involve active participation requiring time and attention (such as meditation, talk therapy, and mindfulness practices).”
Future Company Goals
What are some of the company’s future company goals? Pabst concluded:
“We are focused on expanding our distribution channels to address broader populations and conditions through partners, employers, and payers to reach even broader populations.”
