With the goal of building a unified virtual reality platform to aid in treatments for mental and behavioral health, BehaVR and OxfordVR have joined forces—with a transatlantic transaction that’s raised an additional $13 million to boot.
The new digital therapeutic company will operate under the Tennessee-based BehaVR brand and will be led by BehaVR’s founder and CEO Aaron Gani. At the same time, the acquisition will be complemented by $13 million from a series B funding round.
That financing was led by Optum Ventures and Oxford Science Enterprises with additional backing from Confluent Health, Accenture Ventures, Chrysalis Ventures and Thornton Capital.
The company aims to help address anxiety, stress, pain and addiction through VR headsets in settings ranging from the clinic, group therapy sessions and the home, amid a shortage of trained providers.
“The demand for mental health services far outstrips available resources,” Gani said in a release. “In bringing together two innovative virtual reality therapeutics teams, we are positioned to serve the widest range of patient populations possible at a time of intense need.”
Meanwhile, hailing from the U.K., OxfordVR received a breakthrough designation from the FDA earlier this year for its gameChange software, which aims to offer automated cognitive behavioral therapy to people with acute psychiatric symptoms through immersive simulations of everyday settings such as a cafe, a bus or a hospital.
Going forward, the new BehaVR plans to provide a range of VR-based digital therapeutics that allow for personalized experiences and care plans with connections to clinician oversight.