INVI MindHealth secures up to $4M to study psychedelic therapy for veterans
What's the deal? Denver-based startup Invi MindHealthDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → has secured up to $4M to study the effects of psychedelic-assisted therapy on veterans using wearable devices and app-based data. The company will give 50 veterans Oura Ring devices to track health signals like heart rate, blood pressure, and sleep quality before, during, and after psychedelic treatment at a healing centre in Mexico.
The project is funded through the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H), part of the US Department of Health and Human ServicesDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →. Researchers at Baylor University will partner with Invi to monitor changes in veterans' biometrics and mental health.
Invi's founder, Jonathan Wilson, is a US Navy SEAL veteran who served for 16 years. "I lost a lot of teammates on the battlefield. Today I've lost more teammates to suicide," he said. "We realised we need to change what we're focused on here and really help this community."
Why now? The funding follows an executive order signed by the Trump administration in April that pointed to high suicide rates among veterans. That order prioritised the study of psychedelic-assisted therapy and allocated at least $50M from existing funds to support programmes advancing psychedelic drugs for serious mental illnesses.
Invi applied for funding earlier this year and secured it within months. The company had already been selected by the Department of Health and Human Services for a two-year study of psilocybin, ibogaine, and psychedelic-assisted therapy.
What could go wrong? The full $4M award depends on the project meeting aggressive research milestones. Psilocybin and ibogaine remain controlled substances in most US jurisdictions, which is why participants will travel to Mexico for treatment. Scaling the approach beyond 50 veterans could face significant regulatory and logistical hurdles.
The signal: ARPA-H, a government and non-profit investor established to drive breakthrough health research, backing an early-growth startup like Invi MindHealth underscores how psychedelic medicine is moving from the fringes into federally funded territory. With $50M earmarked at the policy level and a company purpose-built around AI-driven mental health analytics for veterans, the race is on to produce the kind of quantitative evidence — wearable biomarkers predicting treatment response — that regulators and insurers will need before psychedelic therapies can scale beyond controlled studies abroad.
Read more: htworld.co.uk
