Weltech1, Israeli venture capital firm and tech hub for the wellness-related technologies announced on Monday that it had invested $400,000 in PopBase, one of two startups to win Welltech1’s international startup competition.
The competition in collaboration with the Global Wellness Institute (GWI), reviews 152 startups from 25 countries compete for a $200,000 investment pledge by Weltech1.
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PopBase was founded in 2016 by an international team including Israeli Amit Tishler, American Lisa Wong, and British Richard Weeks. The company developed a patent-protected technology platform that teaches and encourages children to adopt a healthy way of life through interactive stories.
The company has raised $1.8 million to date from Israeli and American investors, including Queen City Angels, The Brandery, a subsidiary of the American accelerator gener8tor, and Baron VR, an immersive media agency.
PopBase’s product, Woodland Fables, brings accessible, age-appropriate information to children to encourage the adoption of healthy behaviors such as balanced nutrition, sleep, and physical fitness. The game features are based on characters whose traits are similar to those of children. The platform will launch directly to consumers as a monthly subscription service in Autumn 2021.
In addition, medical practitioners, such as doctors and nutritionists, will be able to vet the content and feed data into the platform, which can be adjusted instantly based on real-time user feedback.
In the US, 42% of children are overweight and 25% suffer from some sort of chronic condition. Moreover, compliance rates for treatment regimens are unsatisfactory because of a lack of access to and understanding of health-related information for children and their families.
“We built a technology that will drive the next generation of entertainment consumption. It’s a medium through which entertainment brands can run a continuous narrative that responds to the needs of its target audience and a platform that combines the immediacy of social media with the interactivity of modern video games,” said CCO Amit Tishler in a statement.
The company’s CEO Lisa Wong added “The development process led us to the realization that we could use our technology to address a major global problem, which affects kid’s quality of life on a daily basis. We can teach healthy values via a world of adventure, using storytelling and interactivity to instill and encourage positive habits.”
“We ran a tough competition in which we examined – together with our experts from Facebook, Nike, Harel Insurance, and others – more than 150 wellness-related startups from across the globe,” Amir Alroy, Welltech1’s co-founder said, adding that “we’re happy to announce that we’ve chosen to invest in PopBase.“
