RYSE’s $50m digital health fund makes first investment

UK healthcare investor RYSE Asset Management has closed a new fund to support start-ups involved in digital health and care technologies, raising $50 million.

The new Special Opportunities Fund will be available to groups requiring seed or first-round financing and will focus on those developing “digital diagnostics, digital therapeutics, and medical devices that will help solve the challenges facing the NHS and other health and care delivery systems globally.”

The first recipient of the new fund has also been announced – Spanish digital detection and treatment healthtech company Braingaze – which was set up to develop apps that can be used to support and treat conditions like attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), autism spectral disorder (ASD), and dyslexia in children, and detect Alzheimer’s disease and mild cognitive impairment (MCI) in adults.

The apps make use of an eye-tracking technology developed by the University of Barcelona spinout that can be used, for example, to allow control of video game characters using the eyes.

BGaze Therapy is a game platform available to professional clinics that asks players to focus on, follow, or avoid looking at objects that appear on the screen, earning points and at the same time training the attention centres of the brain. BGaze Clinic, meanwhile, is used by clinicians to diagnose conditions like ADHD based on eye movement patterns.

“With extensive clinical evidence generated over several years, RYSE is supporting the company to develop and exploit routes to market with the NHS and private clinical groups in the UK, commercialising licensing deals with big pharma and healthcare systems and corporates in the US, Saudi Arabia, and Asia,” said RYSE in a statement.

The new fund has been backed by “cornerstone” investor Future Care Capital, as well as “established global endowments, family offices, and sophisticated investors,” according to RYSE.

Braingaze’s co-founder and chief executive, Laszlo Bax, said that there are estimated to be around 2.6 million people living with ADHD in the UK, both children and adults, but less than one in five of those have a diagnosis and waiting lists for assessments have skyrocketed.

“The potential of innovative digital biomarkers to increase efficiency and improve the patient and clinician’s journey can and should be exploited,” he asserted. “We are delighted to work with the RYSE team, FCC, and the entire UK cognitive care innovation ecosystem towards providing potential new solutions.”