British start-up SleepCogni was awarded a continuity grant from InnovateUK, a government-backed innovation agency, bringing its total funding to $2.5M. Nearly half of that total amount was raised or awarded within the last month. SleepCogni is developing a mounted device that uses visual, auditory, and tactile feedback mechanisms to induce sleep but has not reached commercialization yet. The company's only patent for the device focuses on light-based stimulus and was filed in 2014 and issued in 2016 to parent company Braintrain2020.
The newest grant will help fund a number of initiatives, including clinical trials planned for later this year and a partnership between SleepCogni, DataDare, and Amazon to introduce cloud-based data infrastructure and analysis. SleepCogni may face competition in the future from large companies such as Phillips Electronics and Samsung, both of which also have patents for visual stimulation devices/wearables for inducing sleep. You can view their documents and more on the Magic Number® Patent Radian® for consumer sleep technology.