Accelerator’s 2024 Cohort Focuses on AI, Maternal Mental Health

One Mind, a mental health nonprofit based in Napa Valley, Calif., has chosen 10 companies to participate in the 2024 cohort of its One Mind Accelerator program. This year’s start-ups focus on the use of AI, maternal mental health, and expanding accessibility. 

The 10 startups, selected from over 180 applicants, will receive $100,000 investment each, and will participate in a 9-week program focused on mentoring, fundraising, business development, and founder development. 

By supporting emerging companies through the Accelerator, One Mind said it seeks to positively impact the lives of people facing mental health challenges by advancing precision psychiatry, and making high-quality mental healthcare more accessible, affordable, and equitable. 

This is the second cohort for the One Mind Accelerator since the program’s launch in 2023. The 10 companies selected to participate in the 2024 session are: 
• Amae Health is an integrated whole-person care provider specializing in treating severe mental illness (SMI), focused on personalized and lifelong treatment to deliver lasting health outcomes. 
• Cerula Care is a virtual behavioral healthcare practice that partners with specialists and tailors behavioral health care for adults with serious illness. Cerula Care is using AI/ML modeling to fuel clinical and cost outcomes related to improvement in behavioral health and reduction in hospitalizations. 
• Dionysus Digital Health is developing the first clinically validated epigenetic tests to diagnose hormonal depressions like postpartum depression, PMS, and menopause in women, and to offer precision medical insights to enable the most effective treatments. 
• Ellipsis Health has developed the first-ever voice-based biomarker powered co-pilot for behavioral health by layering on case management, primary care, and urgent care calls. With minutes of speech, Ellipsis’s AI-based solution can in real-time screen for anxiety and depression and triage to different pathways based on severity. 
• Function Health is a personal health co-pilot that starts with understanding your body through all-in-one lab testing. Function’s membership includes 100+ advanced lab tests, with results delivered alongside easy-to-read, actionable insights developed with the world’s top doctors. 
• Holobiome is a B2B platform company building the world’s most comprehensive collection of human gut bacteria and using it as a tool to map how the gut microbiome influences our biology. They are first unraveling the gut-brain-axis, with a focus on translating these discoveries into better food, consumer products, and drugs to give humanity the tools it needs to combat major problems like depression and pain. 
• Humans Anonymous is building anonymous audio for mental health. Members join daily meetings to share their struggles, get advice, and support each other. Communities include loneliness, depression, anxiety, and more. 
• Pangea Bio is a biotechnology company developing transformative medicines for neuropsychiatric and neurological disorders, by deploying AI to uncover promising molecules inspired by nature’s diverse chemical space. 
• Soulside is an AI-powered mental health platform that enables clinical professionals to deliver effective group support for high-risk adults, with an initial focus on enabling nurse-led groups for pregnancy and postpartum support. 
• Vita Health delivers virtual therapy proven to reduce the likelihood of death by suicide by 60-80 percent, the company said. Vita Health said it is the only clinically proven, evidence-based solution focused on suicide risk reduction and prevention. 

"The 2024 companies represent the very best of mental health innovation and we are excited to welcome them into the One Mind Accelerator,” said Brandon Staglin, president of One Mind, in a statement. “From digital health to biotech, from Pre-Seed to Series B, and from first-time founders to serial entrepreneurs, this cohort is indeed eclectic. Drawing from my personal experience with schizophrenia, and with millions of lives in the balance, I eagerly anticipate witnessing their pioneering and diverse innovations spark crucial advances in the diagnosis, treatment, and care for people facing mental illness.” 

This year’s session commences March 4 with a week of in-person programming in Menlo Park, Calif., followed by seven weeks of virtual programming, and a final capstone week also to be held in-person in Menlo Park at the end of April. The Accelerator leverages One Mind’s network of scientists, investors, entrepreneurs, operators, policymakers, payers, providers, mental health advocates, and more to serve as mentors and subject matter experts to the selected companies. 

Key highlights of the 2024 cohort-exclusive programming include: 
• A keynote fireside chat with Thomas Insel, M.D., former director of the National Institute of Mental Health, and Patrick J. Kennedy, former congressman and founder of the Kennedy Forum; 
• An investor panel with representatives from Google Ventures, Satori Neuro, GreyMatter Capital, and the Catalytic Impact Foundation; 
• An employer panel with representatives from Bank of America, Levi Strauss, and Accenture; 
• A payer panel with representatives from Optum, Headway, Health Care Service Corp., and NovaWell; 
• A provider panel with leadership from Stanford University School of Medicine, Massachusetts General Hospital, Kaiser Permanente, and SohoMD; and 
• A biopharma Industry roundtable with current and former representatives from Boehringer Ingelheim, AbbVie, Otsuka, COMPASS Pathways, and Pfizer, among others.