Brainbot

Brainbot is a Toronto-based health technology company that develops an AI-powered concussion recovery assistant. The platform is aimed at people with persistent concussion symptoms and combines activity and symptom tracking with clinician-vetted education and guidance, so users can identify symptom triggers, adapt daily routines and return to everyday activities. The founders describe it as the first AI-powered concussion recovery assistant of its kind.

Patients log activities and symptoms through an on-the-go tracker; proprietary AI analyzes that data to generate personalized, clinician-vetted strategies and weekly insight reports, along with weekly level adjustments and educational resources. Clinicians form a secondary user group, using the platform as a window into patients' day-to-day challenges between clinic visits, with data analytics and suggested strategies intended to make treatment sessions more targeted. Content is developed and vetted with clinical input, and the company works with concussion specialists including Dr. Charles Tator and Dr. Carmela Tartaglia of the University Health Network (UHN) Canadian Concussion Centre.

Founding story

Co-founder Shelley Vaisberg, an occupational therapist with about a decade of experience treating people living with traumatic brain injuries and training in concussion management and cognitive rehabilitation, observed that patients with persistent concussion symptoms struggled to understand symptom triggers and adapt their routines. She then sustained a concussion herself, with an eight-month recovery during which her partner Adam Shedletzky acted as her caregiver. That shared experience of the gap between clinic visits and everyday life led the couple to found Brainbot, with Vaisberg as Chief Clinical Officer and subject-matter expert and Shedletzky, a trained lawyer and management consultant with prior work in government policy on environment and climate change and business development in the cannabis and carbon-market industries, as CEO leading business development.

Business model

Freemium consumer/patient subscription. A free tier provides activity and symptom tracking, weekly level adjustments, educational resources and basic data analytics. Premium features, including personalized strategies and weekly insight reports, are sold on two plans that may be paid by individuals or covered by insurance.

Subscription pricing of $39 per month or $99 per three months for premium access, payable by individuals or through insurance plans; basic access is free.

Traction

Selected as the only Canadian company in the Techstars Healthcare Accelerator cohort in Los Angeles; running a pilot program with UHN's Hull-Ellis Concussion and Research Clinic and working with research partners including UHN's TeleNeuroRehab Centre for Acquired Brain Injury at the KITE Research Institute and the University of Toronto; founders report positive patient feedback on symptom management.

Latest developments

In 2024 Brainbot was accepted into the Techstars Healthcare Accelerator in Los Angeles as the only Canadian company in the program, gaining funding, workshops, mentorship and engagement with large U.S. health insurers, payers and providers, and was expanding access alongside its Toronto research and clinical pilots.