{"id":163629,"date":"2025-09-23T11:07:07","date_gmt":"2025-09-23T11:07:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/163629\/"},"modified":"2025-09-23T11:07:07","modified_gmt":"2025-09-23T11:07:07","slug":"health-startup-founded-by-canadians-expands-ai-powered-dementia-treatment-raises-more-funding","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/163629\/","title":{"rendered":"Health startup founded by Canadians expands AI-powered dementia treatment, raises more funding"},"content":{"rendered":"

Moneta Health, a digital-health startup founded by two Canadians, is bringing its artificial-intelligence<\/a>-powered treatments for dementia to more U.S. states and at the same time receiving an infusion of new cash from investors that include an arm of the American Medical Association. <\/p>\n

Moneta is a phone-based cognitive-rehabilitation service in which patients in the early stages of dementia or with other mild cognitive impairment can talk to real therapists or AI-powered virtual assistants to, essentially, exercise their brains. <\/p>\n

For example, a demonstration video shared by the company shows a patient respond to prompts by saying a word that means the opposite of ones given by the AI assistant. A therapist then reviews the AI sessions for factors such as accuracy and emotional cues and speaks to the patient in a separate session.<\/p>\n

How AI will affect health care and patients in Canadian hospitals, according to a scientist leading the charge<\/a><\/p>\n

Moneta announced Tuesday it had raised US$4.5-million from a group that included True Ventures, Health2047 (the venture-capital arm of the American Medical Association), Ontario Teachers\u2019 Pension Plan and BKR Capital<\/a>, the first institutionally backed, Black-led venture fund in Canada.<\/p>\n

The Tampa, Fla.-based company also said it signed a partnership with Benefis Health System, a Montana-based not-for-profit health-care network, to provide its services to Benefis\u2019s patients, as well as patients in Florida, Nevada, Washington and West Virginia. <\/p>\n

The service requires a referral from a physician. It is currently reimbursed by Medicare and some other private insurance plans. It is currently only available in the United States, although the company plans to eventually bring it to Canada.<\/p>\n

Moneta was founded in late 2022 by Paul Campbell and Jen Flexman, two health-tech veterans from Canada who now live in Las Vegas and Seattle, respectively. <\/p>\n

Tiny robots, big questions \u2013 can tech help older adults with simple tasks?<\/a><\/p>\n

Mr. Campbell said he was inspired to work in cognitive rehabilitation while caring for his mother, who developed dementia after receiving a brain injury while working as a psychiatric nurse.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe went down this path of talking to primary care, and then delays in getting to neurology, finally getting to neurology, getting the diagnosis, and they didn\u2019t have much in by way of treatment options, and something about that to me just didn\u2019t feel right,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

He connected with Dr. Flexman, who had a PhD in bioengineering (specializing in the aging brain) and leadership experience at virtual-health companies in Canada and the U.S.<\/p>\n

Mr. Campbell said the company is so far focusing on so-called neurology deserts, which are communities \u2013 often rural \u2013 where residents do not have adequate access to specialized neurology care.<\/p>\n

Lise Birikundavyi, managing partner of BKR Capital, said her fund wanted to invest because of the confidence they had in the founders and also after speaking to some patients and learning how Moneta\u2019s service was filling a care gap for them.<\/p>\n

\u201cBeing able to have these tools to allow them to have as much dignity as they can for the longest time, we felt was really important,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Moneta Health, a digital-health startup founded by two Canadians, is bringing its artificial-intelligence-powered treatments for dementia to more…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":163630,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[49,48,84,392,6347],"class_list":{"0":"post-163629","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-healthcare","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-health","11":"tag-healthcare","12":"tag-ne-i"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163629","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=163629"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163629\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/163630"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=163629"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=163629"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=163629"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}