I believe we're heading to US. Found this article on the fin review, 18 NovemberTotal Brain CEO eyes pro sports, US veterans in mental health play
Carrie LaFrenzSenior ReporterNov 18, 2019 — 12.00amAs Total Brain chief executive Louis Gagnon met with Scott Johnson, Australia's new director of rugby, just days ago, he had high hopes the company's “mind gym" training program would be adopted by the Wallabies after their poor World Cup performance in Japan.
It is not the first time Total Brain has engaged with Rugby Australia. When former Wallabies coach Robbie Deans looked for a mental edge at the 2015 Rugby World Cup for his squad, he turned to Total Brain founder Dr Evian Gordon. Australia was runner-up that year.
The ASX-listed minnow has now just raised $14 million of fresh capital from local investors including Regal Funds Management and Platinum Funds Management.
Total Brain CEO Louis Gagnon says mental health is costing American companies more than $US17,000 per employee per year. Janie Barrett
Mr Gagnon is aiming to create the "Fitbit" for the brain and improve people's mental agility and mental health. Not only is he looking to Australian sports, he is also in talks with Major League Baseball in the United States.
"The whole sports industry is opening up to us, and we are in talks with the national baseball league – trialling with employees first and then later the players," he told The Australian Financial Review.
Total Brain's subscription-based mental health fitness platform allows individuals to assess and benchmark brain capacities and screens for risk of mental health disorders.
Mr Gagnon, who meditates 1.5 hours every day, is a firm believer that Total Brain has created unique scientific assets that can be offered to employees via corporates, direct to the consumer and to patients via clinics.
The $74 million company has already had some success with large clients including Boeing and Accenture. It also has partnered with health insurer Aetna, integrated healthcare provider Kaiser Permanente, and employee benefits and HR group, OneDigital.
Mr Gagnon – former chief product and marketing officer at Amazon's digital audio entertainment provider Audible – joined Total Brain in 2017 after talking to friend and Total Brain investor, fund manager Peter Cooper. Mr Gagnon had lofty aspirations of achieving $100 million in sales within five years.
Two years in, he admitted that he has missed some of those ambitious targets, noting it took much longer than anticipated to rebuild and pivot the struggling company.
"The tech infrastructure needed to be rebuilt from scratch," he said. "The company was not scalable. I missed four or five months of revenue growth."
US growth
This past year he overhauled the product, including cloud-hosted infrastructure on the back end and a modern app design, and successfully migrated more than 600,000 individual users, 23 corporate customers and five channel partners.
The most recent fund raise will be used to support growth in the US, where Total Brain has signed a partnership with IBM and the US Department of Veterans Affairs. In January it will go live, offering the platform to 18 million veterans who are funded through the VA or other sources that will pay the fee per user that IBM charges.
The direct-to-consumer mental health and wellness market is a big opportunity, but it's a crowded space with much bigger rivals: Headspace is valued at $US320 million ($470 million) while meditation app Calm is valued at $US1 billion.
Wallabies coach Robbie Deans turned to Total Brain to help give his 2015 World Cup squad a mental edge. Stuff.co.nz
Total Brain claims that its key differentiator is it integrates the entire mental health and fitness value chain: from capacity assessment, screening, referrals to health professionals, data sharing with professionals, health monitoring, treatment effectiveness and mind training.
Founded in 2000, the San Francisco-based outfit has attracted many high-profile businessmen, including former BNY Mellon chief investment officer David Daglio and former Och Ziff Asia head Zoltan Varga. Former Goldman Sachs partner David Torrible joined the board and dumped in cash.
Regal's chief investment officer Phil King has been a supporter of Total Brian for a decade. He believes that Mr Gagnon is the right "inspirational leader" after it struggled to commercialise its neuroscience database.
"On the back of the latest financing, we think they could break even in two years," Mr King said. "And that suddenly would open this up to a new class of investors. Mental health is a huge and growing problem in society today and we all have a responsibility to improve the mental health of society."
A recent Productivity Commission report into the state of Australia's mental health found it is costing up to $180 billion a year and services are failing to meet "community expectations".
Mr Gangon said the opportunity to help address the mental health crisis in the US, which costs an employer more than $US17,000 per person in healthcare and lost productivity, is in screening.
"About 20 per cent of the US population has a mental condition, and half of those don’t know," he said . "When they don’t know and show up to work, it costs the employer."