One Mind™ Issues Call for Applications to the One Mind Accelerator, a New Program to Fast-Track Breakthroughs in Mental Health through Startups

November 17, 2022 at 13:17 PM EST

A cohort of ten emerging companies developing innovative solutions for mental health conditions will receive $1 Million total in investment along with mentoring, training, and investor access

One Mind™, a leading mental health non-profit with a 28+ year track record of supporting psychiatric research, has announced the launch of a new program, the One Mind Accelerator. The program aims to help founders rapidly build and scale early-stage startups developing real-world solutions to improve the lives of people facing mental health conditions. One Mind™ is now accepting applications for the inaugural session of the intensive 10-week program, commencing in February 2023. Up to ten companies will be selected to participate and will each receive a $100,000 investment.

“Our nation is facing a mental health crisis. Serious mental illness, which impacts more than 14 million people in the US at a cost of $318 billion annually, is still desperately undeserved,” said Brandon Staglin, President of One Mind and a schizophrenia survivor. “The One Mind Accelerator will serve as a force-multiplier for entrepreneurs tackling some of the hardest problems in mental health so that people who are suffering the most get access to the treatments and services they need, with the sense of urgency they deserve.”

The One Mind Accelerator will invest in startups across a wide range of mental health conditions and solutions. At one end of the spectrum, these will be service-based companies innovating on patient engagement, access, quality of care, and care delivery models. At the other end, these will be “deep science / deep tech” companies commercializing breakthrough discovery platforms, diagnostics, and treatments with the goal of realizing the promise of precision psychiatry. Of note, companies focusing on serious mental illness will be given special attention.

“Mental health is the one area of healthcare where, despite advances in our understanding of mental illness and availability of solutions that work, the patient outcomes are actually getting worse,” said Dr. Thomas Insel, former Director of the National Institute of Mental Health, entrepreneur, author, and advisor to the Accelerator. “I am especially excited about the One Mind Accelerator because one of the most important ways we can improve outcomes is by supporting entrepreneurs to get these breakthroughs into the hands of the people that need them faster.”

Selected companies will typically be at pre-seed or seed-stage; and have full-time founding teams, a product and/or service in development, and proof of traction either through clinically validated research, customer discovery, or early revenue. The Accelerator will provide 10 weeks of programming that covers all aspects of building a mental health company: from working with payers and providers, to pursuing regulatory approval, to designing category-defining companies that adhere to the highest ethical standards. Co-creating with the lived experience community will be an important aspect of the program, helping founders to build products that accurately address the needs of their target market.

The Accelerator will leverage One Mind’s extensive network of scientists, investors, entrepreneurs, operators, policymakers, payers, providers, and mental health advocates, to serve as mentors and subject matter experts to the selected companies. The program will also have support from major corporations such as Silicon Valley Bank, Amazon Web Services, Brex, and HubSpot, all in service of removing the obstacles that slow down early-stage companies from getting to market. The program will also bring in the leading experts in neuroethics to instill a strong ethical foundation in each company we invest in.

Making a difference to early-stage companies

“As a tenured professor at Stanford running a neuroscience laboratory, I came into the world of entrepreneurship ready to learn, but not knowing where to start,” said Dr. Amit Etkin, CEO & Founder of Alto Neuroscience. One Mind is an early investor in Alto Neuroscience, a precision psychiatry company pioneering a new approach to psychiatry drug development based on its proprietary AI-derived brain biomarker platform. Dr. Etkin is now advising the Accelerator program.

“Looking back at the early days of Alto, there were so many things we could have used help with from developing investor relationships to learning to navigate the healthcare system. That’s where the One Mind Accelerator is going to make a major difference for founders in this space,” continued Dr. Etkin.

Participating companies will be selected through an open application process and referrals. The selection committee will be comprised of leading businesspersons and investors from the One Mind Board: Garen Staglin, Co-founder and Chairman of One Mind; Gwill York, Co-founder of Lighthouse Capital Partners; Christopher Lyle, Founder of Skyline Capital and formerly, Founder of Sequoia Capital Global Equities; and Harvey Schwartz, former President and Co-Chief Operating Officer of Goldman Sachs. Aaron Gershenberg, co-founder and managing partner of SVB Capital, will serve as an external member.

To submit an application for the 2023 One Mind Accelerator session, please visit here. The application deadline is December 31, 2022. For additional information and questions about the Accelerator, please contact Carmine Di Maro, Director of One Mind Accelerator: carmine.dimaro@onemind.org

About One Mind™

Launched in 1995 by Shari and Garen Staglin as their means to “run toward the problem” of their son’s schizophrenia diagnosis, One Mind today catalyzes visionary change through science, business and media to transform the world’s mental health. Through such achievements as enrolling over 10,000 patients in innovative clinical studies and the One Mind at Work initiative that has brought supportive workplace mental health practices to over 7 million employees, One Mind powers evidence-based solutions to enable all people to succeed in their mental health journeys. Brandon Staglin, whose own experiences inspired the creation of the non-profit, now serves as its President, exemplifying the change One Mind seeks in its disruptive initiatives.