Millions of people around the world (and at least one JPost tech reporter) have been diagnosed with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. While the condition definitely has its benefits (is it a coincidence that several top-ranking entrepreneurs have been diagnosed with the condition?), it may still prove challenging to the people whose lives it affects, including the parents of ADHD children.
Like a hyper-fixated Moses descending from Sinai with two ritalin tablets in hand, hi-tech entrepreneur and fellow ADHD-haver Ziv Elul co-founded the startup Periapt, a med-tech company that is developing an AI-based platform to support and streamline the treatment of children diagnosed with the condition. The company, which he co-founded a year after the $650 million sales of his previous company, Fyber, has raised $6m. in pre-seed funding.
Periapt’s technology facilitates collaboration between parents and care teams, significantly cutting back the time required to find the best course of treatment while providing practical assistance to contend with the day-to-day challenges faced by children diagnosed with ADHD.
Along with co-founders Gili Avital-Lang and Meir Amsellem (COO and CTO, respectively), Elul (who, while we’re at it, serves as Periapt’s CEO) managed to get quite a few VC firms on board with the idea, including round leaders PICO Venture Partners and Aristagora, as well as Samsung NEXT, Rhodium. Additional assorted wealthy people who invested include Tom Livne, Offer Yehudai, Nir Greenberg, Benny Shaviv, Raoul Stein and Amiram Shachar.
“We were surprised to discover that the treatments available today for ADHD are inadequate and do not rely on real-life data,” said Elie Wurtman, co-founder and managing partner of PICO Venture Partners. “Insurance companies and parents in the US spend roughly $24 billion a year on medical and supporting treatments for attention deficit disorder, yet the solutions available are not sufficiently addressing the needs. Together with our partner, Periapt, we’re excited to take part in the mission to technologically improve and streamline the process, for the benefit of both patients and health care systems.”
“As a parent that has experienced the process of accompanying a child with ADHD firsthand, I am keenly aware of the challenges faced by parents. The current investment round will allow us to develop technologies for monitoring how treatments affect patients, alongside parent training and providing continuous support adapted to the individuals and their families,” said Elul.
A blazing interview
In a blazing interview with The Jerusalem Post that I would describe as “several-dozen-miles-a-minute” (because he was driving for the duration), he elaborated on the ideation process behind Periapt’s inception.
“I was quite surprised that for kids, there is no real platform [that addresses their issues], and the pain from parents is huge,” he said while checking his rear-view mirror. “We want to strengthen parents, to make them feel confident in the way that they treat their kids [in relation to their ADHD] because there is a strong connection between being strong as a parent and finding success with ADHD.”
“We’re here to do good. And of course, it’s a startup, so we need to make our investors happy – but we want first and foremost to succeed in doing good,” Elul concluded and accelerated off into the mid-morning horizon.