13
d'Octubre
de
2016
Act.
13
d'Octubre
de
2016
Roger is scared of heights and wants to overcome his fear. Every week he visits his psychologist, who has chosen to treat him with virtual reality. Every time he has a session with his psychologist, he tells him how he feels and whether he has noticed an improvement, among other details the doctor might ask about. Then, the doctor prepares a mobile telephone, inserts it into some Samsung Gear goggles, and gives it to Roger to put on.
In a matter of seconds, he sees himself in a lift that continues to rise. He has 360° vision, so that he can see all around him, how the ground is getting further away and, unlike a couple of months ago, he feels no anxiety and he is not nervous. In short, he has no fear.
This is an fictitious example of how Psious works, an application for psychology professionals who treat the phobias of their patients with virtual reality. It is a tool for mobiles that is used by more than 500 professionals in Spain and that was created in 2013 by the physicists XavierPalomer, CEO of the startup, and DanielRoig, the CBDO, two friends from university who began by creating their own 3D glasses and who have ended up developing the first online mental health platform.
Getting ahead of the trends
Roig was frightened of flying. He avoided taking planes and did not overcome his fears until he found himself in a situation in which he was forced to fly. Having suffered from a phobia himself, along with his experience in 2012 when he took part in a programme of the Imagine Creativity Center in Europe, he gave up his job and started his own business. "I consider myself to be a creative person, but I had never thought about having my own business," he says, "I have always worked in the technology and digital world, and I needed a change, so I took the plunge with Xavi without thinking twice."
The initial idea was to make a mobile app that did not include virtual reality, but looking into the treatment of phobias, the cofounders discovered that virtual reality had been shown to be more effective than conventional treatment.
So, in July 2013, Palomer and Roig invested almost 48,000 euros of their own capital. They began to formulate the idea for the app and at the end of the year obtained a 3D printer in El Corte Inglés, one of the first on the market, so as to create their own goggles. "At that time there were no goggles like there are now, so we had to make them ourselves, and that allowed us to get ahead, to get the first early adopters and bit-by-bit define the product and the business model," he says about a situation that at the time seemed crazy. Two years later, "when everyone was talking about virtual reality on the mobile, we had already been working with it for two years."
To their own capital over those years has to be added an ICF loan in the initial stages and another from Enisa that, together with small contributions from family and friends, allowed them to continue developing the product. Yet the real boost came from the US accelerator, River, from the Rothenberg Ventures fund, with an investment of 1.2 million dollars at the start of 2015.
Born in the States to grow in Spain
The next objective is to return to the United States, where they are already present in some hospitals. And going back is necessary because, for Roig, they are a startup that came out of the North American continent: "Even though the technological maturity is similar in both countries, Spain is not a great place to start a business. That is why we went to find funding in the United States. It is true that in Europe there are more grants, but there is increasingly more demand for them."
Psious can say that its business model has matured in Spain and has done so slowly but surely. However, now the team once more has its gaze set on the United States to "most likely" open a new investment round and grow. "During all this time we have kept in contact with people, we have a lead investor in Rothenberg and that opens lots of doors," says the CBDO.
As for the rest of Europe, for the moment they have nothing planned. According to Roig, it is not as an attractive market as the American one and has one important problem: "The diversity of languages." "The United States is already a big enough country, this needs a lot of resources and we prefer not to have so many focal points," he adds.
Showing that it works
In terms of the public health system, they are present in the Vall d'Hebron hospital in treatment for attention deficit disorder, in Clínic treating stress from medical procedures and in Murcia in mental health treatment. As Roig says, the aim is to increase their presence through talks taking place with the Institut Català de Salut and the Conselleria de Madrid.
The main difficulties they find when it comes to reaching public health centres is red tape and the need to "show that it saves money." "We know that the public health system is not innovative, it cannot take risks because it has to be efficient. There are mechanisms and tools to innovate, but it will never be with the latest technology," points out Roig in justifying their greater presence in private centres.
The cofounder tells VIA Empresa an anecdote in which Psious managed to help a well-known Catalan actress who lives in Madrid with her fear of heights. "We cannot give her name," he says on being asked the identity of the celebrity who got professional help in the private sphere, "but it took us by surprise when we learnt who it was."
Professionals prepared for progress
Roig thinks that all the technologies coming out in the field of virtual reality will converge into just one: mixed reality."Important steps are already being taken in which the use of virtual and augmented reality at the same time are helping in palliative care in oncological procedures, in surgery, in the reduction of drug use…," he says. That is why it is important to have trained professionals on the team.
Yet the key to success, says Roig, has been developing an application that can be used with any Android phone. "If you tell a doctor he or she will have to spend money on goggles, they won't want the platform. However, if you tell them that they can install the app on their phone worth 100 euros and that all they have to pay is a monthly subscription, then they will go ahead," he says. That's why he believes that the smartphone has been the driving force behind virtual reality, a small device that is in everyone's hands.
In a matter of seconds, he sees himself in a lift that continues to rise. He has 360° vision, so that he can see all around him, how the ground is getting further away and, unlike a couple of months ago, he feels no anxiety and he is not nervous. In short, he has no fear.
This is an fictitious example of how Psious works, an application for psychology professionals who treat the phobias of their patients with virtual reality. It is a tool for mobiles that is used by more than 500 professionals in Spain and that was created in 2013 by the physicists XavierPalomer, CEO of the startup, and DanielRoig, the CBDO, two friends from university who began by creating their own 3D glasses and who have ended up developing the first online mental health platform.
Getting ahead of the trends
Roig was frightened of flying. He avoided taking planes and did not overcome his fears until he found himself in a situation in which he was forced to fly. Having suffered from a phobia himself, along with his experience in 2012 when he took part in a programme of the Imagine Creativity Center in Europe, he gave up his job and started his own business. "I consider myself to be a creative person, but I had never thought about having my own business," he says, "I have always worked in the technology and digital world, and I needed a change, so I took the plunge with Xavi without thinking twice."
The initial idea was to make a mobile app that did not include virtual reality, but looking into the treatment of phobias, the cofounders discovered that virtual reality had been shown to be more effective than conventional treatment.
So, in July 2013, Palomer and Roig invested almost 48,000 euros of their own capital. They began to formulate the idea for the app and at the end of the year obtained a 3D printer in El Corte Inglés, one of the first on the market, so as to create their own goggles. "At that time there were no goggles like there are now, so we had to make them ourselves, and that allowed us to get ahead, to get the first early adopters and bit-by-bit define the product and the business model," he says about a situation that at the time seemed crazy. Two years later, "when everyone was talking about virtual reality on the mobile, we had already been working with it for two years."
To their own capital over those years has to be added an ICF loan in the initial stages and another from Enisa that, together with small contributions from family and friends, allowed them to continue developing the product. Yet the real boost came from the US accelerator, River, from the Rothenberg Ventures fund, with an investment of 1.2 million dollars at the start of 2015.
Born in the States to grow in Spain
The next objective is to return to the United States, where they are already present in some hospitals. And going back is necessary because, for Roig, they are a startup that came out of the North American continent: "Even though the technological maturity is similar in both countries, Spain is not a great place to start a business. That is why we went to find funding in the United States. It is true that in Europe there are more grants, but there is increasingly more demand for them."
Psious can say that its business model has matured in Spain and has done so slowly but surely. However, now the team once more has its gaze set on the United States to "most likely" open a new investment round and grow. "During all this time we have kept in contact with people, we have a lead investor in Rothenberg and that opens lots of doors," says the CBDO.
As for the rest of Europe, for the moment they have nothing planned. According to Roig, it is not as an attractive market as the American one and has one important problem: "The diversity of languages." "The United States is already a big enough country, this needs a lot of resources and we prefer not to have so many focal points," he adds.
Showing that it works
In terms of the public health system, they are present in the Vall d'Hebron hospital in treatment for attention deficit disorder, in Clínic treating stress from medical procedures and in Murcia in mental health treatment. As Roig says, the aim is to increase their presence through talks taking place with the Institut Català de Salut and the Conselleria de Madrid.
 |
| Psious uses Samsung Gear goggles for its app A. Corón |
The main difficulties they find when it comes to reaching public health centres is red tape and the need to "show that it saves money." "We know that the public health system is not innovative, it cannot take risks because it has to be efficient. There are mechanisms and tools to innovate, but it will never be with the latest technology," points out Roig in justifying their greater presence in private centres.
The cofounder tells VIA Empresa an anecdote in which Psious managed to help a well-known Catalan actress who lives in Madrid with her fear of heights. "We cannot give her name," he says on being asked the identity of the celebrity who got professional help in the private sphere, "but it took us by surprise when we learnt who it was."
Professionals prepared for progress
Roig thinks that all the technologies coming out in the field of virtual reality will converge into just one: mixed reality."Important steps are already being taken in which the use of virtual and augmented reality at the same time are helping in palliative care in oncological procedures, in surgery, in the reduction of drug use…," he says. That is why it is important to have trained professionals on the team.
Psious employs almost 30 people of diverse profiles, from technicians to a sales team and protocol designers, in other words, doctors and psychologists who design the scenarios. Yet the cofounder highlights customer success workers: "They ensure the success of our clients so that going into the virtual world is beneficial to them and their patients, that they know how to use the platform... The psychologists who want to use the tool have to receive training and our team takes care of all of that, providing advice and information."
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| The team is made up of technicians, psychologists and sales people. Psious |
Yet the key to success, says Roig, has been developing an application that can be used with any Android phone. "If you tell a doctor he or she will have to spend money on goggles, they won't want the platform. However, if you tell them that they can install the app on their phone worth 100 euros and that all they have to pay is a monthly subscription, then they will go ahead," he says. That's why he believes that the smartphone has been the driving force behind virtual reality, a small device that is in everyone's hands.