☁️🍄 Issue No. 014: Into the Medi-verse

Happy Sunday, folks, and welcome back to Headlines. I’ve eked out all my VR and Apple puns for the full piece today, so you’ll just have to read them down below. 👇

INTO THE MEDI-VERSE

VR is coming for mental wellness. 

AN APPLE A DAY

Rumor has it: This summer, Apple is launching its long-awaited AR/VR headset. 

Alongside gaming/sports, meditation experiences are said to be one of its cornerstone features, immersing users in a landscape of serene sounds and zen-inducing voiceovers. 

The move comes amidst a growing roster of mental wellness plays from Apple: 

• The tech giant is reportedly building a new journaling app to help users monitor their mental and physical health. 

• It also has various research projects underway to develop mental health monitoring capabilities for the iPhone and Watch. 

And for years, CEO Tim Cook has repeatedly asserted that Apple’s greatest contribution will be “transforming health for all mankind.” 

Boom or bust? We’re well past the metaverse hype of late 2021. Following declarations of the “next chapter for the internet,” Zuckerburg’s billion-dollar bets have all but fizzled. 

Indeed, the road to mixed reality has been bumpy, even for tech’s best and brightest. From Google’s Glass to Microsoft’s HoloLens to Meta’s Quest, building a whole new world is no easy task. 

Can Apple pull it off? Opinions are mixed. It has a stellar track record for marrying hardware and software in revolutionary ways. Still, employee doubts about the impending headset release have been significant enough to cause several rare defections.

VR-OOM VR-OOM

Apple’s plan is the latest in a flurry of activity in this market. Projected to reach $3.9B by 2023, the VR-based meditation business is on the up. 

TRIPPing out. With over $26M in total funding, TRIPP offers psychedelic visualizations, breathing exercises, and more. This January, it teamed up with CMU’s Equa Health, investing further in clinically backed VR mindfulness training. 

Preparing patients for the real deal, TRIPP is often used as a stepping stone before psychedelic-assisted therapy. Others bringing psychedelics and VR together include Enosis Therapeutics, FireflyVR, and Wellbeing Digital Sciences. 

Coming Hoame. Toronto-based meditation startup Hoame is a metaverse-based meditation studio providing both live and on-demand classes. Last year, it launched a subscription-based app for Meta Quest 2. 

Maloka Metaverse. A gamified approach, Maloka’s guided meditations come complete with a “spirit companion” that evolves your avatar the more you meditate. 

Elsewhere, there’s Zen VR, a meditation curriculum taught in virtual reality, and Alo Yoga launched a limited-time virtual yoga and meditation studio on Roblox last year.

This February also saw the launch of Innerworld, which teaches evidence-based mental health tools on top of guided meditations. 

APPLES TO PEARS

Peering into the future, the rise of consumer VR mental wellness could pave the way for clinical VR therapeutics. 

Startups in this space like Rey, Rocket VR, and XRHealth are building VR-powered psychotherapy with promising results. 

• Studies have shown that just a single VR coaching session halved phobias for patients with severe paranoid beliefs

• Immersion VR therapy led to a 38% decrease in anxiety and avoidant symptoms after six weeks. 

But, following digital therapeutics giant Pear Therapeutics’ recent bankruptcy filing, the logistical road ahead for companies in this space will be tricky. The problem? Pear struggled to convince insurers to pay for its tech. 

Taking a different approach, wider adoption of retail VR/AR tools—particularly with Apple’s consumer tech prowess—could prove out demand to payors for a whole new class of mental health therapeutics. 

LOOKING AHEAD

As many will be quick to note, there’s an irony to the whole movement of connected mindfulness. In some ways, tech-powered meditation isn’t meditation at all. As our world skews increasingly digital, are more gadgets really what we need?

But taking another lens, viewing VR as an augmentor and not a replacement, the possibilities begin to open up. 

The first wave, 2D and audio-powered offerings like Headspace and Calm brought meditation to millions. VR meditation—and its potential to strengthen remote connection—could usher in a powerful next era founded on community. 

This is where VR/AR can shine — creating convincing, presence-filled containers. Today, many remote meditation groups are already leveraging Zoom rooms and other virtual tools to “sit” together. Mixed reality could supercharge the experience.

Punchline: Apple’s foray into VR mental wellness is significant. From MP3s to smartphones, tablets to AirPods, Apple has proven that it can think different. Realistically, it will likely be years before VR mental health treatments become a staple, but VR meditation is a promising start. 

QUICK HITS

• So it begins. Oregon issues the nation’s first-ever licenses for psilocybin facilitators. 

• Mental health levy. Seattle’s King County pushes through a $1.25B property tax to pay for behavioral health services.

• I’m game. Open-world brain adventure game Nestheads raises funds to build its gamified mental health tool. 

• Research raise. North Carolina lawmakers file a bill to create a $5M grant fund for expanding psychedelic research. 

• Synaptic acceleration. Popular coding YouTuber Fireship uses Neurosity’s consumer EEG headset to trigger actions in OpenAI’s GPT4 API. 

• Open opps. New UCSF postdoc in stress and emotions; Qualia Research Institute seeking intern to support its consciousness and emotional valence research. 

NEWS & TRENDS

1) The "most scientifically bewildering state of meditation"

As we discussed in our latest issue, the psychology field could learn a lot from studying spiritual practices. Intrepid consciousness explorers have been pushing the limits of the human psyche for millennia. 

The latest under investigation is nirodha-samāpatti, a state where highly advanced meditators can allegedly suspend their consciousness for long periods of time, in similar fashion to anesthesia. A new paper investigates this phenomenon, complete with EEG data catching it in action.→ Read more

2) Again, the mind-body connection 

Mental illness isn’t just a brain problem. A new study published in JAMA Psychiatry found that poor body health—especially of the metabolic, hepatic (relating to the liver), and immune systems—are a more marked manifestation of mental illness than brain changes are. 

The findings held across mental disorders ranging from schizophrenia to bipolar disorder, depression to anxiety. The takeaway here? The future of mental health tech is going to need to be a whole lot more holistic. → Read more

DEALS & DEBUTS

🍄 PsyMed Ventures, a mental health tech VC, reached $15M in signed commitments for its fund. The company invests in everything from psychedelics to neurotech, precision psychiatry to digital therapeutics.→ source

🙈 Vice Ventures, an early-stage VC, closed its second fund at $25M. The firm invests in traditionally “taboo” companies operating in verticals including psychedelics, sex tech and wellness, and harm-reducing nicotine.→ source

🚀 Tryp Therapeutics, a psychedelic drug developer, closed A$2.4M ($1.6M) in an oversubscribed round. The proceeds will help advance Tryp’s research and development around psilocybin and psilocin.→ source

🥽 XRHealth, a VR therapeutics platform, merged with Amelia Virtual Care (formerly Psious VR), a VR platform for mental health professionals. The companies will become one company under the XRHealth brand.→ source 

🧠 MYndspan, a noninvasive brain scanning technology, is teaming up with Clerkenwell Health, Europe’s first commercial psychedelic research facility. The partnership will provide researchers unique insight into psychedelics’ impact on the brain.→ source

🤝 Koa Health, a clinically validated mental well-being app, joined force with CoreHealth, a corporate wellness platform. The partnership will extend access for CoreHealth orgs across the world to deliver science-based mental health programs.→ source

⚡ Silo Wellness, a psychedelic retreat provider, announced plans to acquire BitGift, a crypto payment processor. Silo plans on leveraging the company to help “steer Oregon psilocybin from a dangerous cash-only system.” → source

✌️ Two Chairs, a hybrid mental health provider, landed a national contract with health insurance plan Aetna. It will leverage the partnership to expand its footprint in Florida. → source

🌸 Mindbloom, a ketamine therapy provider, partnered with SHIFT, a management consulting firm, to provide at-home ketamine therapy as a benefit to its employees. → source

🏥 CVS Pharmacy is staffing six MinuteClinic locations across the Los Angeles metropolitan area with licensed mental health professionals. The move could pave the way for increased mental health services across CVS’s national footprint in the future. → source

WHAT I’M READING

• Psychedelic report. A comprehensive deep dive into the opportunities, challenges, and landscape of the psychedelic business in Oregon and Colorado. From Psychedelic Alpha’s Josh Hardman. → reMind Media

• Shroom for more? Oregon’s new psilocybin legislation is spurring a thriving underground magic mushroom economy. → Willamette Week

That’s all I’ve got for you today! Thanks for tuning in. Can’t believe April’s already coming to a close — hope you had a nice month.

This week, I’m settling into a quiet little Victorian here in SF. 🌉 The weather has been gorgeous. Lots of good park hangs, golden hour walks, and afternoon cafe lounges. Grateful for it.

Last but not least, if you’re not a part of our community yet, join us below. 

‘Til next Sunday,

-Mel