The world’s most powerful brain training device for home use.

Project Information

Mendi Neurofeedback

Grant agreement ID: 888409

DOI

10.3030/888409

Project closed

EC signature date 4 December 2019

Start date 1 October 2019

End date 31 March 2020

Funded under

• INDUSTRIAL LEADERSHIP - Innovation In SMEs

Total cost

€ 71 429,00

EU contribution

€ 50 000,00

Coordinated by

MENDI INNOVATIONS AB
Sweden

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - Mendi Neurofeedback (The world’s most powerful brain training device for home use.)

Reporting period: 2019-10-01 to 2020-03-31

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

Mental, neurological and substance abuse issues together affect 13% of the world’s population. Depression strikes particularly hard (4.3% of the global disease burden, and 11% of total years lived with disability globally, in 2004), with women disproportionately affected, and 1 in 4 experiencing some symptoms during their lifetimes. Mental disorders were estimated to have the potential of €14.7Tr in lost economic output between 2011 and 2030. Identification and treatment have greatly improved in much of the world, as mental health becomes less stigmatised, but modern society has become increasingly complex and stressful, along with longer life expectancy, which feeds the problem. Mental health is also becoming a major issue for young people.

Mendi Innovations AB is a cutting-edge European neurofeedback company located in Stockholm, Sweden. Neurofeedback methods use brain training techniques coupled with direct imaging of neural activity to improve brain function, but current approaches are limited to expensive clinics, or low accuracy consumer products. Co-founders Sammy Saldjoghi and Rickard Eklöf started Mendi in 2018 to bring the most advanced neurofeedback imaging techniques and training methods, used in neurofeedback clinics around the world, into the consumer market.

The overall objectives are to improve mental health and well-being.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

The work performed during the project was as detailed in the scope, and work plan, of the phase 1 project proposal:
Scope: Activities will include 5 key areas:
· Perform a close customer consultation to determine the full requirements for our devices.
· Evaluate our market position and go-to-market strategy and update partnerships and business plans.
· Deepen our full value chain understanding to refine our business and pricing models.
· Protect our commercial position through patent(s) for the most valuable application areas.
· Plan and secure finances for phase 2 activities and budgets, market introduction and eventual scaling up.

Work Plan:
Validate commercial/market feasibility of Mendi Gen2 and Platform/B2B/B2G approach.
· Perform detailed market study and determine target market data, dynamics, stakeholders and approaches;
· Perform deep customer consultation, map requirements to system specifications, update technical roadmap;
· Demonstrate additional prototypes to meet specific market vertical requirements;
· Analyse the need for and implement further/stronger IPR protection (patents and other methods);
· Build partnerships to support phase 2 commercial activity: prototype production trials, commercial.

Validate economic/financial feasibility of Mendi Gen2 and Platform/B2B/B2G approach.
· Further analyse the target markets to confirm the best market entry verticals;
· Deepen understanding of mental HealthTech, performance, and wellness value chains and cost breakdown;
· Investigate the commercial potential and impact of system features and roll-out strategies;
· Update our financial plan to ensure the financial, personnel, and other resources are in place for market entry, including the activities, resources and budget for market validation (phase 2)

Deliverable: A feasibility study report including analysis of market position, target verticals and market potential, commercial protection, commercial potential of system features, and optimum go-to-market strategy

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

We have determined that we can impact more people than expected from a pure B2C play due to unexpected crowdfunding takeup. This second-generation approach will enable us to grow to ca. 50,000 users in the next 2-3 years, and gives us a very strong position to bootstrap our scaling to market and break even within B2C. However this approach is ultimately limited: we will have to broaden the technical content and value prop to remain competitive in the medium/long-term, and to reach the true potential impact of our innovation. Mendi Gen 1 is already the state of the art for wearable neurofeedback for consumer use, and we do not anticipate any significant competition in that regards in the near- to medium- term, Mendi Gen 2 will de-facto progress wearable neurofeedback beyond the state of the art.

A larger reach requires expansion into new verticals, products, B2G/B. This is currently hampered by long lead times and an insufficient knowledge of the markets. Although we cannot evaluate a positive feasibility to move into B2G/B at this time, we have taken steps to facilitate this: Hiring fNIRs neurofeedback researchers, preparing our Gen 2 device for data integration with clinical systems through an open data API, securing letters of support and intent for small scale clinical trials. A major near-term effort in this direction will however require more funding than we can source ourselves (through Gen 1 bootstrapping or private funding). However, it will open the possibility of 1-2 orders of magnitude improvement in revenue and societal impact. Again, this will push the state of the art, which is Mendi, even further forwards.

mendi logo