Accelerace invests in medical device startup REDO – Neurosystems
Accelerace invests in REDO – Neurosystems, a participant in Beyond Beta’s second cohort, to support them in developing the world’s only (!) non-invasive neurofeedback treatment to combat the underlying cause of chronic muscle and joint pain.
It is estimated that 20-40% of the global population will develop chronic pain at some point in their lifetime.
If you are one of the unlucky ones, the first line of treatment is physiotherapy and weak analgesics. Usually, this does not provide adequate relief and progress to the second line of treatment, stronger analgesics, and in the worst case, surgery. In the end, these treatments do not actually solve the underlying causes, that is the oversensitive nervous system and increased pain response in the brain, they only reduce symptoms temporarily.
Founded by Tor Duerlund Emanuelsen, Morten Kirkegaard, Rasmus Lund, and Mathis Rosenberg Sørensen, RELEARN (the name of the treatment/software) is a first-mover in the chronic pain area. The treatment analyzes and visualizes pain-specific brain activity, which is provoked whenever a patient executes a painful movement.
The original idea was to measure pain objectively, but the original research group identified that a specific brain wave (alpha-wave) is related to the perceived chronic pain and by manipulating this, you can reduce the perceived intensity of chronic pain. This new treatment, focused on neural rehabilitation, allows patients to rehabilitate how their brains respond to pain:
“Our technology makes it possible to treat the underlying issue [of chronic pain], by training the patient to alter their pain response towards what we see in healthy patients, causing an effective pain reduction”. (Mathis Rosenberg Sørensen, Co-founder and COO)
While being enrolled in the Beyond Beta accelerator program and mentored by Peter Birk, Head of Business Development at Accelerace, the team is initiating their last clinical trial in May, which will lead to a CE-certified product and allow the team to start selling:
“Chronic pain is an area with huge costs for the affected patients and for society, and there is a great need for improved treatment options, with particular focus on alternatives to opioids. REDO Neurosystems fills very important gaps in the management of chronic pain by providing new cutting-edge tools for professionals working with pain patients. I am very happy that Accelerace supports this great technology and excellent team.” (Peter Birk, Head of Business Development at Accelerace)
The medical device software is a spin-off from Aalborg University.
About Accelerace:
Since 2008, Accelerace has supported 800+ Danish and international startups, including Trustpilot and Templafy, made 65+ pre-seed investments and matched startups with industry-leading companies such as Tetra Pak, Arla, and Elia. Accelerace is also responsible for the management of NOME (Nordic Mentor Network for Entrepreneurship), an elite mentoring program for Nordic startups within therapeutics, medical devices, diagnostics, digital health, and industrial biotech.
Accelerace Invest II is the largest Danish fund in terms of numbers of investments. By making approximately 30 new investments in pre-seed stage startups every year until 2023, the ambition is to be Denmark’s most aggressive early-stage investor.
About Beyond Beta:
Beyond Beta is Denmark’s top-tier accelerator program for promising startups with a demonstrated growth ambition, operated by Accelerace, the Danish Business Hubs (under the lead of Copenhagen Business Hub – Erhvervshus Hovedstaden), and Danish Design Center, who have combined their experience of working with 1000+ startups to launch this next evolutionary step of European accelerators.
The platform-based approach means that startups can kick-start their journey today by joining the 100% free, online pre-accelerator, which can be used as an on-demand toolbox to build for scale or as a first step into the core accelerator program.