Soihtu Dtx

About Soihtu Dtx

Soihtu DTx, founded in 2023 as a spin-out from Aalto University, operates at the intersection of digital health and gaming to address major depressive disorder. The company is built upon more than a decade of neuroscientific research, culminating in the development of a novel, game-based digital therapeutic. The executive team includes CEO Jukka Laakso, CTO Sami Lehtinen, CSO Matias Palva, Chief Data & Analysis Officer Joonas J. Juvonen, and Chief Medical Officer Lauri Lukka. The company has secured over €3 million in a pre-seed funding round led by Finnish investment company Innovestor and NewFund HEKA, an international brain health specialist investor.

The company’s business is centered on creating prescription digital therapeutics (DTx) to tackle unmet needs in mental healthcare. Traditional treatments for depression often focus on mood symptoms, while cognitive impairments like deficits in attention, memory, and problem-solving are overlooked. Soihtu DTx directly targets these cognitive challenges through its primary product, a video game named Meliora. The business model appears to be B2B2C, where the game will be prescribed by healthcare professionals as a medical device, subject to regulatory approval from bodies like the FDA. The target clients are patients with depression, particularly those who have not responded adequately to conventional therapies.

Meliora is an immersive, game-based intervention designed to strengthen executive functions and the underlying fronto-parietal neuronal circuits. Unlike passive digital therapies, it provides an interactive experience that combines adaptive cognitive training with therapeutic content. Early clinical trials have shown that this approach can lead to significant reductions in depressive symptoms and improvements in quality of life, with results comparable to psychotherapy but achieved more rapidly. The prescribed treatment involves about 30-40 hours of gameplay over eight weeks. By transforming treatment into an engaging and participatory medium, Soihtu DTx aims to improve patient adherence and outcomes, making effective mental healthcare more accessible.