Neurotechnology start-up Elemind is tackling sleep as its first category in a wider push to advance health and well-being innovation around what it calls “electronic medicine.”

Founded in 2019, US-based Elemind has developed a smart headband that is able to read and respond to an individual's electroencephalogram (EEG) brainwaves in real time and deliver precise acoustic stimulation to influence a person's brain state. The start-up says it is “building the future of electric medicine,”—developing wearable neuromodulation technology designed to mimic the benefits of pharmaceuticals by influencing brain waves to change behavior and establish certain brain states. 

"Noise Cancellation" for the Brain

The device is being studied as a tool to suppress the nervous system condition essential tremor, enhance memory consolidation, increase pain thresholds during sedation, and improve sleep. The team behind the patented neurotechnology—made up of neurotech and neuroscience professors, doctors, researchers and entrepreneurs associated with renowned institutions like the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Imperial College London, and Harvard Medical School—are targeting sleep using neuromodualtion to help the wearer fall asleep faster and improve sleep efficiency.

“It's like a noise cancellation system for the brain,” says Meredith Perry, co-founder and CEO of Elemind. The headband works by interupting the brainwaves that keep a person awake and boosting the waves that keep someone in a deep sleep state by sending tailored acoustic feedback signals—directing the wearer out of wakeful patterns. Clinical studies conducted by Elemind have shown the headband helps 76% of people fall asleep faster.

Launched last year, after five years in development, the $349 wearable technology is currently available to buy online across the US and Canada via the company's own website, with a sleep tracking app and AI add-on for tailored monitoring set to launch within the next 12 months. 

So, why sleep? The category is “enormous,” Perry says, because sleep is so important for mood, hormonal regulation, metabolism, and physical and mental performance.

According to Statistica, the sleep economy—which includes everything from mattresses to wearable devices to supplements—was estimated to be worth $585 billion in 2024. And Mintel's US Sleep Health Market Report 2024 suggests consumers today are more attuned than ever to the relationship between sleep and overall well-being. According to the report, nearly three-quarters of US consumers believe sleep to be important to their overall health, with increased energy, improved physical and mental health, and better mood the strongest motivators behind seeking better sleep. Yet half of US consumers cite worsening sleep quality due to routine changes—a problem that stretches globally, with only half of consumers worldwide satisfied with their sleep, according to research by  Mintel andKantar.

“We Were in Stealth Mode for Four Years”

Perry tells Beauty Matter the idea for the wearable neurotechnology device was born from a desire to develop a physical intervention that could be as effective as a chemical drug on the body. “I was very interested personally in developing or finding a way to develop an electronic drug,” Perry says.

“... We were in stealth mode for four years, which was pretty crazy. Nobody knew who we were; we had raised a bunch of money, but everything was quiet,” the co-founder says. It wasn't until last February, after years of product iterations, clinical trials, and closing a seed round of close to $12 million, that the company made its public appearance–presenting the idea of “electric medicine” and noninvasive stimulation to guide the brain and ultimately change behavior, she says. Investors include early-stage venture fund Village Global, deep-tech and life sciences fund LDV Partners, the MIT Investment Fund, and founders of Skype and Nest, among others. But Perry says the company is looking to take on further investment in the first half of 2025.

Sleep, Wellness, and Beauty

On the product side, she says there are several key consumer groups Elemind wants to reach with its tech in the sleep category. Athletes, for example, is one important category  because of how critical sleep is to next-day performance; breast-feeding moms and new parents is another with the complexity of newborn sleep patterns; travelers, too, given shifting timezones and long journeys. Beyond this, perimenopausal and menopausal women is another group Elemind wants to reach, as well as shift workers and high-performers in stressful work environments.

More broadly, there is an interesting merge between sleep and the wider beauty and wellness category, Perry says. And the CEO predicts that as beauty and wellness continues to pivot on self-care routines, the nighttime routine will become just as important as the morning one.

To tap into this, starting in February, Elemind is partnering with Indian-American author and alternative medicine advocate Dr. Deepak Chopra to offer a 21-day holistic program to consumers with guided pre-sleep meditations alongside the use of its sleep device. “We fully recognize that sleep and everything that surrounds sleep and wellness is a holistic process,” she adds.

Next-Generation Sleep Optimization

Perry says Elemind's wearable device brings fresh innovation to a category that, for a long time, has been limited.

“If you look at the options for optimizing sleep, you're left with a whole bunch of either tools that don't work that well or options that come with consequences; sleep drugs, for example. They might be effective at helping people stay asleep, but they come with severe consequences, which is addiction, hangover, fogginess. So, you might get the benefit of some sort of sleep-like state, but you're not getting the benefits the next day, which is what you really want sleep for,” she says.

Beyond these consumables and wearables, she says there are options like breathing and relaxation techniques and exercises or even psychotherapy methods like cognitive behavioral therapy—but all require commitment, motivation, and time.

“We wanted to meet people where they are ... We wanted to provide an option that was effectively the equivalent of a pill in terms of ease, without the negative side effects and without people needing to commit a huge amount of time to learning something new,” Perry says.

Currently, she says the headband offers two main features—to fall asleep faster and fall back to sleep faster—but the goal over the next few years will be to add functions.

“Over the course of many years, we're going to release new stimulation features that improve the device and your night of sleep.” In 2025, for example, Elemind will launch a stimulating feature that enhances a user's delta waves in deep sleep, which has been shown to elongate the amount of time a person stays in a state of deep sleep and thus improve overall sleep quality.

Beyond Sleep and Global Expansion

Within a decade, Perry says the aim is to stretch far beyond the category of sleep. “We hope that Elemind becomes an app store for the brain,” she says, offering a range of brain applications where users can essentially “download a brain state.”

Elemind's work in the fields of memory, sedation, and tremor reduction indicate likely avenues the company might take, though for now she says the next steps are undisclosed.

One thing that is certain is that the company has important expansion goals over the next few years.“Europe is our next target, and after that we want to expand globally,” she says, though this will be done slowly and “carefully.” The ultimate goal will be to distribute globally via other companies and partners, and eventually retailers, although “that might not be for a while,” Perry concludes.