Senseye is a technology company.
Senseye has raised $11.0M across 2 funding rounds.
Senseye has raised $11.0M in total across 2 funding rounds.
Senseye has raised $11.0M in total across 2 funding rounds.
Senseye's investors include Alpha Capital Acquisition Company, Felicis Ventures, FJ Labs, MMC Ventures, Peterson Partners, Sequoia Capital, Georges Harik, Martin Varsavsky.
Senseye is a technology company developing an AI-driven diagnostic platform for mental health, primarily targeting PTSD, anxiety, depression, and addiction by analyzing eye physiology via smartphone cameras.[1][2][3][5] The platform serves clinicians and healthcare providers, solving the problem of subjective, time-intensive mental health assessments by delivering objective digital biomarkers in minutes without specialized equipment, enabling personalized care, baseline establishment, and outcome tracking.[2][3][4][5] It has shown promising clinical results, including pilots with UCLA and the U.S. Department of Defense, and received strategic investment from Topcon Healthcare to expand into broader neuropsychiatry applications.[3][4]
Senseye was founded in 2015 in Austin, Texas, by David Zakariaie, who serves as CEO.[1][2][6] Zakariaie, selected as one of Google's 100 Glass Pioneers in 2012 and a recipient of an Office of Naval Research Award for DNA computing research, brought expertise in emerging tech and serves as an Instructor Pilot in the Civil Air Patrol.[6] The idea emerged from research showing mental states can be observed through eye dynamics, advancing lab results into a non-invasive platform using AI, computer vision, and biometric data like pupil dynamics and heart-rate from smartphone videos.[1][3][4] Early traction included promising UCLA pilot studies distinguishing PTSD patients from controls, SBIR funding for Air Force applications, and clinical trials backed by the U.S. Department of Defense.[3]
Leadership includes President & COO Simon Woods, VP of Clinical/Quality/Regulatory Brad Strasser, and Director of Research Caitlin Limonciello, PhD, with a team blending MedTech, neuroscience, and ML expertise, plus a top PTSD advisory board.[2][6]
Senseye rides the wave of AI-enabled digital biomarkers and telemedicine, transforming mental health from subjective questionnaires to objective, physiological metrics via the eye as a "non-invasive window into the brain."[1][4] Timing aligns with surging demand for accessible mental health tools post-pandemic, especially for high-burden conditions like PTSD in military and veteran populations, amid market forces favoring edge AI on consumer devices over costly equipment.[3][5] It influences the ecosystem by pioneering smartphone-based neuropsychiatry diagnostics, enabling integrations like Topcon's Harmony platform for holistic care, and setting a "new standard of care" through DoD/academic validation—potentially expanding to human-computer symbiosis via eye-brain links.[1][3][4]
Senseye is poised to scale its platform beyond PTSD into MDD, GAD, and addiction, leveraging Topcon's investment for ophthalmic integrations and further DoD/academic trials to secure FDA pathways similar to peers in AI diagnostics.[4] Trends like AI hardware accelerators, telehealth mandates, and precision psychiatry will accelerate adoption, especially as mental health crises persist in underserved groups. Its influence could evolve from niche military tool to mainstream clinician standard, redefining measurement as "if you can see it & measure it," ultimately empowering global mental health visibility through ubiquitous tech.[4][5] This positions Senseye as a leader in making invisible conditions objectively trackable, tying back to its core mission of breakthrough diagnostics from the eyes.
Senseye has raised $11.0M across 2 funding rounds. Most recently, it raised $6.0M Series A in January 2019.
| Date | Round | Lead Investors | Other Investors |
|---|---|---|---|
| Jan 1, 2019 | $6.0M Series A | Alpha Capital Acquisition Company, Felicis Ventures, FJ Labs, MMC Ventures, Peterson Partners, Sequoia Capital, Georges Harik, Martin Varsavsky | |
| Dec 1, 2017 | $5.0M Series A | Alpha Capital Acquisition Company, Felicis Ventures, FJ Labs, MMC Ventures, Peterson Partners, Sequoia Capital, Georges Harik, Martin Varsavsky |