Sword Health raises $40 million, expands into mental health with AI

Sword Health, a startup focused on helping people take care of pain through digital services, is expanding into mental health and has raised additional capital to fuel its growth.

The ten-year-old company is introducing Mind, which uses a mixture of artificial intelligence, hardware and human mental health professionals to treat patients with mild depression and anxiety. Sword said Mind will help users access care each time they need it, moderately than during sporadic, hourlong appointments. 

“It’s really a breakthrough when it comes to how we address mental health, and this is barely possible because now we have AI,” Sword CEO Virgílio Bento told CNBC in an interview.

Also on Tuesday, Sword announced a $40 million funding round, led by General Catalyst, in a deal that values the corporate at $4 billion. The fresh money will support Sword’s efforts to grow through acquisitions, in addition to its global expansion and AI model development, the corporate said. 

The round included participation from Khosla Ventures, Comcast Ventures and other firms. Sword had raised a complete of greater than $450 million as of September, in keeping with PitchBook. 

The financing lands because the digital health market shows signs of recovery following a difficult post-Covid stretch, when rising inflation, higher rates of interest and a return to in-person activities led to a dramatic retreat within the industry.

Earlier this month, Omada Health, which offers virtual care programs to supports patients with chronic conditions corresponding to diabetes and hypertension, held its Nasdaq debut, though the stock is trading below its initial public offering price. Weeks before that, digital physical therapy provider Hinge Health hit the Recent York Stock Exchange. The shares are trading a number of dollars above their offer price.

Sword, which was founded in Portugal and is now based in Recent York, offers tools for digital physical therapy, pelvic health and movement health to assist patients manage pain from home and avoid other treatments corresponding to opioids and surgery. Patients can enroll for Sword if it’s supported by their employer or their health plan.

Mind users will receive a wrist wearable called the “M-band” that may measure environmental and physiological signals corresponding to heart rate, sleep and the lighting in a user’s environment. Mind also includes access to an AI Care agent and human mental health professionals, who can deliver services corresponding to traditional talk therapy. 

Bento said a human is all the time involved with a patient’s care, and that AI will not be making clinical decisions.

For instance, if a patient has an anxiety attack, Sword’s AI will recognize that and will ask a clinician to approve some physical activity for later that day to assist with recovery. The clinician would either approve the physical activity that the AI suggested, or override it and propose something else. 

“You’ve an anxiety issue today, and the way in which you are going to manage is to speak about it one week from now? That just doesn’t work,” Bento said. “Mental health must be all the time on, where you’ve got an issue now, and you may have immediate assist in the moment.”

Bento said Sword has some clients which have been on a waiting list for Mind, and the startup has been testing the offering with a few of its design partners. He said early users have approved of Mind’s personalized approach and convenience.

“We imagine that it is admittedly the long run of how mental health goes to be delivered in the long run, by us and by other firms,” Bento said. “AI plays an important role, but using AI — and I believe this may be very essential — must be utilized in a really smart way.”

Disclosure: Comcast, the parent of Comcast Ventures, is the owner of NBCUniversal, parent company of CNBC.

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