UK digital mental healthcare firm ieso, today announced a raise of $53 million (€47m) in Series B financing.

The round was led by investment firm Morningside, with further new investment from Sony Innovation Fund and existing shareholders IP Group, Molten Ventures and Ananda Impact Ventures. 

WHAT IT DOES

ieso aims to address the global mental health crisis by developing clinically evidenced assessment and treatment products to address common mental health conditions.

Its core product offers artificial intelligence (AI) powered digital cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) delivered by a therapist. With a growing network of 600 qualified therapists, ieso serves more than 20 million adults through the NHS. 

Also, through its 460,000-hour therapy dataset and real-world evidence platform, ieso offers a route for accelerated development and trailing of personalised mental health treatments 

The firm has created AI tools that review therapy sessions to highlight suboptimal treatment and drive improved patient recovery outcomes. 

WHAT IT’S FOR

The funds raised will help ieso develop autonomous therapy systems that match the high standards of human care delivery, at lower cost to health systems.

ieso intends to seek regulatory approval for its digital tools in the US and UK ahead of bringing them to market. The company will extend its commercial teams to the US and target co-development and distribution partnerships that can facilitate scalable market access. 

MARKET SNAPSHOT

Digital therapeutics (DTx) have been predicted by Insider Intelligence to be a $56 billion (€49bn) global opportunity by 2025.

In Germany, the DTx course 'HelloBetter Stress and Burnout' can now be prescribed to around 50 million adults after being approved by the German Federal Institute for Drugs and Medical Devices as a Digital Health Application (DiGA).

Meanwhile Kry recently announced plans to roll-out its internet cognitive behavioural therapy (ICBT) programme for mental health issues across Europe.

ON THE RECORD

Nigel Pitchford, ieso CEO, said: “At ieso, we’re looking to transform global mental health by unlocking the power of clinical data to develop AI- enabled digital therapeutics. Our experience delivering outstanding mental health care within the NHS ideally places us for starting to tackle this challenge. A new generation of clinically validated digital mental health care products could ultimately improve millions of lives.”

Stephen Bruso, Morningside Ventures, who also joins the board, commented: “By pairing one of the world’s largest databases in CBT, with sophisticated AI algorithms, ieso is delivering improved mental health care to patients with significant unmet need.”

Dr Andy Richards CBE, ieso chairman, said: “We are in a global mental health crisis. There are simply not enough clinicians to assess and treat the growing number of people who need help. Whilst we have seen an explosion in the number of mobile apps to help address mental health conditions, there is an urgent need for true digital therapeutics which have been approved for treating patients.”