NewDays, a Seattle health-tech company, announced Monday it has raised $16 million to scale an unusual combination: licensed therapists working alongside an AI companion named Sunny to treat early-stage dementia and mild cognitive impairment. The seed round, co-led by Madrona and General Catalyst, will fund the startup's expansion in Washington, California, Florida, Texas, New York, and Nevada.
The funding closed in stages over 13 months, according to GeekWire and SEC filings. NewDays first disclosed $7 million last September, tacked on another $4.5 million in an October extension flagged in a Form D filing, then announced the full $16 million total alongside its Nevada launch last week.
The model is straightforward: patients get biweekly telehealth sessions with a licensed clinician, plus daily cognitive exercises guided by the AI, which draws on more than 900 scripted conversations developed through I-CONECT, an NIH-funded clinical trial. Sessions last 10 to 30 minutes. Traditional Medicare covers the service, the company said, and NewDays is pursuing contracts with private insurers and Medicare Advantage plans.
That exclusive license to I-CONECT protocols gives NewDays something resembling clinical credibility in a field crowded with wellness apps and unproven interventions. But whether an AI chatbot can actually slow cognitive decline remains an open question. The company's own evidence is preliminary.
NewDays presented a 24-patient case series at the Alzheimer's Association International Conference in July, showing patients exceeded expected cognitive performance by more than 8 points on the ACE-III assessment over roughly seven months. The company framed that as preserving about 1.5 years of cognitive function compared to historical decline curves. Depression and anxiety scores held stable or improved for most participants. A randomized controlled trial is underway with Kaiser Permanente Southern California, though no results have been published yet.
The startup now operates in Washington, California, Florida, Texas, New York and Nevada, according to GeekWire.
Behind NewDays are two veterans of Big Tech's moonshot projects. CEO and co-founder Babak Parviz led Amazon's Grand Challenge healthcare initiatives as a vice president and founded Google Glass at Google X. Co-founder Daniel Kelly ran engineering teams at both Amazon and Google X. The company lists between 11 and 50 employees on LinkedIn.
The board includes Holly Maloney, a managing director at General Catalyst, and Tim Porter, a managing director at Madrona. The clinical advisory board pulls from Harvard Medical School, UC San Diego, the University of Montreal, the University of Michigan and Johns Hopkins. Hiroko Dodge, the Harvard neurology researcher who led the original I-CONECT trial, serves as an advisor.
"For too long, people experiencing cognitive changes have been told there's nothing they can do beyond maintaining a healthy lifestyle and preparing for decline," Parviz said in a press release announcing the initial seed round.
The market is real enough. About 1 in 9 Americans over 65 have Alzheimer's dementia, and mild cognitive impairment affects roughly 22% of older adults, according to the Alzheimer's Association's 2026 Facts & Figures report published in April. An August summit report from the National Institute on Aging highlighted AI's potential in reducing costs and improving early diagnosis.
NewDays faces competition from Linus Health, which raised a $55 million Series B in 2021 for cognitive screening tools, and Altoida, which brought in $14 million in 2022 for AI-based assessments. Cogstate and Neurotrack also offer digital cognitive platforms, though most focus on screening rather than intervention.
"Our goal isn't to add years," Parviz told GeekWire recently. "It's to add quality to the years people have."
The company's pitch hinges on a belief that generative AI, supervised by human clinicians, can finally deliver medically validated interventions at scale. Whether investors' $16 million bet pays off depends on what the Kaiser trial shows, and whether Medicare Advantage plans decide an AI companion is worth covering. For now, NewDays is placing its chips on Sunny.
