What You Should Know:
– Ellipsis Health, a San Francisco-based pioneer of the first voice vital sign to quantify and manage depression and anxiety at scale has raised $26M in Series A funding led by SJF Ventures with participation from several investors. The Series A investment round brings Ellipsis Health’s total funding to $31 million.
– Founded in 2017, Ellipsis Health has pioneered an artificial intelligence-powered, speech-based vital sign to quantify and manage depression and anxiety symptoms at scale. The new capital will support customer base and partnership growth, research and development for more new voice-based technology to expand its voice vital sign to address the mental health of children and adolescents.
Establishing Non-Invasive Vital Sign As Clinical Standard in Mental Health
With behavioral health conditions at epidemic proportions, research has found that 28 percent of people in the U.S. have depression, 36 percent suffer from anxiety, and 41 percent have reported mental health disorders within the last year, two times more than 2019. Ellipsis’ technology empowers people to take control of their mental health and supports clinicians managing surging patient volumes by generating a science-based assessment of stress, depression and anxiety from less than 60 seconds of a person’s natural speech.
Ellipsis’ models analyze both what is said (using natural language processing) and how it is said (acoustics, such as tone and timing) to better understand a person’s emotional state. The technology seamlessly integrates with mobile apps, patient portals and telehealth visits – easily enabling data-driven care, workflow efficiency and positive economics for providers, insurers, and employers. The company is closing the mental health screening gap by identifying people who need help sooner while also bridging the monitoring gap by gaining visibility into people’s mental health over time and between appointments.
Expanding Voice Vital Sign to Children & Adolescents
The investment will further the company’s artificial intelligence-generated voice biomarker technology that offers providers, payers and patients a clinically validated measurement-based solution for advancing mental healthcare. In addition, he company will be expanding its voice vital sign to address the mental health of children and adolescents. These more vulnerable populations are often not investigated as vigorously, which can delay a diagnosis and critical treatment leading to devastating outcomes. A report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found the rate of suicide among those aged 10 to 24 increased nearly 60 percent between 2007 and 2018, highlighting the desperate need for accessible and innovative clinical decision support tools like Ellipsis Health.
“The Ellipsis Health team is incredibly grateful to everyone who is working tirelessly to build awareness and compassion for behavioral health conditions, and we are excited to continue to collaborate with more partners in the industry to systematically establish a new clinical standard in mental health care,” said Mainul I Mondal, Founder and CEO of Ellipsis Health. “Together, we can revolutionize emotional wellbeing and enable people to build deeper relationships, connections, and bonds with each other.”
