Healium CEO Wins P&G Pitch Contest

Sarah Hill, CEO of Healium, won the P&G Ventures Innovation Challenge. She received $10,000, an opportunity to work with P&G Ventures and an invitation to join the Brandery’s accelerator program.

Located in Columbia, Missouri, Healium is the world’s first digiceutical for the self-management of anxiety powered by consumer wearables. Healium is a clinically validated mindfulness tool that uses virtual and augmented reality apps for the self-management of stress and anxiety. Unlike traditional meditation, Healium is active, immersive, and visual. It’s a virtual and augmented reality media channel powered by brainwaves and heart rate via an EEG headband or Apple Watch. In three peer-reviewed studies, Healium reduced moderate anxiety by a third in as little as four minutes. Inside Healium virtual reality and augmented reality apps, users can see their feelings (biometric data from their wearables) displayed as a firefly moving up and down the graph. Through neurofeedback, you’re able to control your environment.

Throughout their business journey, this unique local startup has had help from the Missouri Innovation Center along the way. They assisted Healium in getting legal advice to form the company, secure patents and connect Healium to mentors that became their first board of directors. Had it not been for the Missouri Innovation Center or the Missouri Technology Corporation, their company would not be alive today. The MTC’s investment allowed Healium to create new jobs in the spatial computing section in Missouri, which then enabled them to secure patents and further develop their product.

Healium’s product is now being used to allow frontline healthcare workers self-manage their anxiety during the COVID epidemic. Luckily, the have significant revenue in this endeavor, thanks to MTC's help. They now have blue chip customers like Google, Facebook, and the VA. Healium’s experiences have been viewed more than 7M times.