Over the past few years, there has been a steady influx of startups trying to treat issues like depression, period pain, PMS, anxiety and insomnia by using wearables that apply electrical, magnetic or ultrasonic signals to stimulate the brain.

San Francisco-based Mave Health is the latest of that fleet, and claims its $495, neuromodulation headset can improve attention and mood, regulate stress, and even measure mental health. The startup is positioning the wearable as a non-medical device so it won’t need clearance from agencies like the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to sell in the U.S.

Dhawal Jain, who started the company in 2023 with his college batch mates Jai Sharma (CMO) and Aman Kumar (CTO), said he realized the need for such a device after his flatmate’s fiancée committed suicide during the COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns.

“In India, committing suicide is a crime, which meant there was police involved, and we had to speak to her psychologist. The answers we got from them made us question if any of it made sense. We started connecting with other psychologists and were getting the same answers,” Jain said.

The founders felt that there was no tangible way to measure progress in the mental health space. “For example, if you ask a psychologist how do you know if a person is making progress, their response to it is very standard, which is that it’s not about progress. It’s about process […] But for somebody with depression who is spending a lot of time in therapy, progress is important. So how do you know whether they’re making progress or not? And even these basic questions were not being answered.”

In an effort to solve that, the team started to learn more about neuroscience by talking to experts, and soon after realized that while there has been progress around neuromodulation in labs, consumers haven’t had the benefit of it.

The company then worked with medical device and mental health experts to conduct trials of the technology. But eventually it took a different route and positioned its headset as a lifestyle device. Jain said this approach would let Mave reach a wider audience.

The device and technology

Mave Health’s device employs transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS), a non-invasive technique to administer low-intensity currents to the brain to fire up neurons. The technique is sometimes used in psychology, and is said to be safe. Side effects are mild and temporary, like itching or discomfort.

The headset delivers a low 1-2 mA current to stimulate the brain. The startup says customers can use the device, which weighs roughly 100 grams, anytime, and recommends daily sessions spanning 20 minutes for the first few weeks of usage.

The startup also provides an app that can measure long-term trends in mood, focus and stress levels. It can also integrate with other health data and track measures like Heart Rate Variability (HRV). Jain said users start with a self-reported baseline assessment when they start, and complete follow-up assessments every two to four weeks, which helps Mave understand if the device is helping a user in the long term.

The company hasn’t performed any clinical trials or published any studies yet. However, Jain says it worked with more than 500 users in a private beta in 2024 and 2025, during which eight in ten users reported a 60% increase in productivity. The startup noted that 75% of its private beta users also reported a reduction in stress from their baseline within two months of usage.

Mave Health said it has performed four observational studies across 200 participants that are under academic review with an aim to publish this year.

Dr. Himanshu Nirvan, a Delhi-based psychiatrist who worked with Mave Health as a consultant, said that tDCS-based devices are considered a proven way to address mental health-related issues. However, he noted that he hasn’t looked at the technology from a lifestyle lens.

The company says it ran a program in India with Dr. Nirvan to test the device and the technology.

“We did select a lot of patients, and it was essentially a good program in my opinion. Things like that are generally not very frequently and easily available even in the mental health management space,” Dr. Nirvan said. “I felt that for a lot of people, tDCS is actually quite a good modality, considering that it’s a very portable device. You can essentially charge it at home, take it anywhere you want, even while you’re traveling.”

Leigh Elkin Charvet, a clinical neuropsychologist and Professor of Neurology at NYU Grossman School of Medicine, told TechCrunch over email that while tDCS is considered a safe and effective approach to neuromodulation, devices need to be designed well to align electrodes properly, and users need to have regular and consistent sessions.

“One challenge is that consumers may use the device without clinical screening or clear guidance about whether it is appropriate for their symptoms. Another is that it can be difficult for users to determine whether the device is actually helping if outcomes are not being measured in a structured way,” she said.

Charvet added that the use of tDCS for broad lifestyle enhancement in healthy individuals has not been studied widely. “So far, most of the strongest research has focused on clinical populations or structured cognitive training paradigms. We do not yet have clear guidance or strong evidence supporting the use of tDCS to improve performance in otherwise healthy individuals. A lifestyle use case may still emerge, but that will rely on clearly defining target outcomes and demonstrating that effects are measurable and reproducible,” she said.

The device is currently available for pre-order, and the company is aiming to ship its first batch to customers in the U.S. and India in April 2026.

The company recently raised $2.1 million in a seed funding round led by Blume Ventures, with participation from individual investors who include Tesla Autopilot AI lead Dhaval Shroff. The startup has raised just under $3 million in funding to date.