United Kingdom-based start-up SleepCogni recently raised £1.4m ($2m) to scale its insomnia therapy business to commercialize into the United States market.
SleepCogni’s insomnia therapy includes both a device and a cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia (CBT-I) platform. The handheld-device offers a personalized wind-down program in which haptic cues draw one’s attention span to reduce rumination and sleep effort. In its recent clinical trial (which has not yet been published), SleepCogni’s device and therapy significantly reduced insomnia complaints compared to a placebo—users improved from clinical insomnia to non-clinical insomnia within 7 days.
Through a combination of debt and equity funding, SleepCogni exceeded their £1.1m fundraising target, bringing their total investment to £3.2m ($4.4m) and company valuation to £7.3m ($10m). This round has seen investment from new VC, Chasnay Capital Partners, SleepCogni’s existing investors and retail investors, together with loan funding from the UK’s innovation agency, Innovate UK.
The new investment will be used to scale the business to commercialize. This involves preparing its medical device for volume manufacturing, development of the clinician and patient-led online platform, and achieving first sales.
Along with this raise, SleepCogni has added to its team with executives Colin Greene and Andrew Morfey.
Greene, a former Apple executive for almost 15 years leading Apple’s US consumer business to multibillion revenues, says in a release, “My North Star is who I work with, and the level of enthusiasm, passion, and desire to do great things at SleepCogni is outstanding. SleepCogni is a great example of hardware and software working together to have a truly life changing impact on patients.”
Morfey, a former finance director at AXA Health-On-Line who subsequently led AXA Health’s development of their £10m well-being platform, says in a release, “SleepCogni is delivering a real, clinically viable intervention to an extremely debilitating condition that effects millions worldwide. We all know someone who struggles with sleeping, and the impact on health, performance, and relationships is very clear. The decisions to obtain clinical credibility and to focus very clearly on delivering one solution at a time in an agile fashion really resonate with me as measures for success in this market.”
SleepCogni CEO Richard Mills, says in a release, “The two key milestones reached, the clinical trial results, which have shown a significant improvement for chronic insomnia sufferers, and FDA registration in the US, positioned us very well to achieve this fundraise. I am very thankful for the continued support from our existing investors and thrilled to announce a whole new list of new investors led by Chasnay Capital Partners who not only offer investment but provide ability and experience to achieve global scale.”
SleepCogni chairman Richard di Benedetto says in a release, “This investment will provide us with real life testing with sleep clinics in the US and UK, positioning us for first revenues and a larger fund raise in 2022-2023. We hope that over the next 12 months, we will expedite our business plan to meet the huge global demand for clinically proven therapies. Insomnia is a global epidemic and our unique patented therapy promises a new clinically proven solution.”
