Supported by Peak XV and Jungle, Neurowyzr places a focus on brain health | TechCrunch. dll

Image Credit: neurosens

Dementia rates are estimated to double every 20 years, but many tools for early detection, such as MRI scans, are difficult for patients to access. Neurowyzr wants to help more people get brain health care through tools like the online Digital Brain Function Screen (DBFS). The startup with offices in Singapore and India announced today that it has raised $2.1 million in seed funding. This oversubscribed round was led by the Surge Jungle Ventures and Peak XV (formerly Sequoia India and Southeast Asia) program, with participation from angel investors.

Neurowyzr has now raised $3.3 million since being founded in 2019 by Nav Vij and Pang Sze Yunn. The company will participate in Medtech Innovator Asia Pacific 2023, the largest medtech accelerator program in the world.

Vij, Neurowyzr’s chief digital neuroscientist, became interested in early brain decline and related therapies while studying for a neuroscience degree at the University of Melbourne. A family member was diagnosed with a neurodegenerative disease at a young age, which motivated Vij to remove barriers to brain health care. Pang, who has pioneered health initiatives, including Asia’s first heart failure monitoring project, is interested in brain health care because she sees the impact brain conditions have on family members, especially the women who care for them.

Pang told TechCrunch that much of the work in neurology today is focused on treating serious brain conditions. But the decline in brain function can begin 20 to 40 years before conditions such as dementia, mental illness, or stroke appear. Therefore, early detection is very important.

Co-founder of Neurowyzr, Pang Sze Yunn (CEO) and Nav Vij (chief digital neuroscientist). Image Credit: neurosens

Traditional brain tests such as the pen and paper test can be affected by the examiner’s bias, whereas MRI and CT scans are expensive and inaccessible to many patients. Neurowyzr wants to address this gap with its digital neuroscience assessment tool, the Digital Brain Function Screen (DBFS). Intended to be faster and less expensive than traditional cognitive testing, DBFS is currently used by healthcare organizations such as Parkway Shenton, SATA Commhealth, Farrer Park Hospital, MHC Medical Center (Amara) and O’Joy in Singapore. The company has also completed trials with a large private hospital network in India and is registered with the US Food and Drug Administration, the Health Sciences Authority of Singapore and the Australian Therapeutic Goods Administration.

Pang says DBFS can be completed within 15 to 20 minutes. It assesses the patient’s immediate memory, working memory, attention and executive brain function through a series of gamified neuroscience puzzles. For example, one puzzle has dots with numbers in each puzzle scattered across the screen, and prompts the user to connect them in order. Others show a series of numbers that the user needs to memorize and then write down sequentially. DBFS is hosted online, so patients can access it via a web browser link at home, although DBFS is designed for primary care settings.

Neurowyzr’s new funding will be used for product development and regional expansion in Southeast Asia and India. The startup is currently working with academic organizations such as the Dementia Research Center at NTU’s Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine to develop more digital brain health solutions, with the goal of reducing undetected cases of early brain decline.

In a statement, Jungle Ventures healthcare partner Seemant Jauhari said, “The projected figures tell a true story in Asia: in the next two decades, more than 66 million people will face dementia, while mild cognitive impairment could affect more than 400 million people. Neurowyzr is a direct response to this challenge. By promptly assessing brain and mental health, we build a proactive defense against potential epidemics.”