Exclusive: VR autism therapy startup Floreo gets $1M from Cleveland Clinic, submits to FDA
Illustration: Shoshana Gordon/Axios
Floreo, a startup using virtual reality to treat autism, received $1 million from the Cleveland Clinic Ventures to hone its technology, the organizations tell Axios Pro exclusively.
What's next: Floreo is awaiting FDA review of its device and plans to raise a Series B round in the meantime, CEO Vijay Ravindran says.
- Ravindran declined to disclose how much Floreo is targeting.
Follow the money: Cleveland Clinic Ventures has invested $3.5 million total in Floreo, which has raised $15 million to date.
- Other investors include AIF and City Light Capital.
How it works: Chevy Chase, Md.-based Floreo's platform is built atop Cleveland Clinic's Autism Eyes diagnostics and assessment technology, which Floreo acquired in 2024.
- Floreo's VR headset is designed to teach life skills to autistic and neurodiverse children.
- Founded in 2016, Floreo's platform received breakthrough-device designation from the FDA in 2023. Last month, Floreo submitted to the FDA for de novo clearance.
Zoom out: Autism therapy workforces are expanding, but not quickly enough to meet demand, per a report from Bailey & Co.
- Floreo envisions its VR tech supporting patients where they are, from clinics to schools and homes.
What they're saying: "We are constantly looking for a single-platform solution, and we see VR glasses as a perfect single platform for early diagnostics, patient monitoring, and more in autism," Cleveland Clinic Ventures partner Linda Li tells Axios Pro.
- Li says Floreo stands out for enabling repetitive therapy practices that would often be too costly to run multiple times in a traditional setting.
- "There are so many repetitive practices an autism patient can do without having to have a clinician repeat it. That's a real advantage," says Li.
- Plus, "each patient has a different cadence at which they're ready to be introduced to the next skill. Say I'm practicing crossing a busy street, and now I'm ready to handle a car coming into the street," she says.
What we're watching: Li and Ravindran envision Floreo's technology being adapted for schools and homes, assuming the corresponding studies they conduct support such uses.
- "As Cleveland Clinic, we can be a good infrastructure partner to help generate all the evidence-based data and rigor and governance to support further advancement of this technology," Li says.
