Lifeboat Foundation

Massachusetts startup Elemind has raised $12 million to read brainwaves and treat people for sleep disorders, long-term pain, tremors, and to speed up learning rates. Clinical trials show the company’s wearable device can accelerate sleep up to 70% faster, reduce tremors in patients with physiological shaking up to 50%, and boost learning rates.

“We use a wearable neurotech device to read the brain in real time and intercept it in real time with something called neurostimulation,” Elemind co-founder and CEO Meredith Perry told me on a recent TechFirst podcast. “That’s using sound or light or vibration or electricity to stimulate the brain. And when we do that, we can actually guide the brain precisely, and that leads to a behavior change. So like a drug, but much smarter and without the side effects.”