Healing after October 7: Israeli startups tackle a PTSD crisis with technology
From VR therapy to voice-based diagnostics, a new wave of mental health innovation emerges from Sderot.
One of the profound consequences of the October 7 massacre and the two-year war that followed is a surge in the number of Israelis struggling with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). According to a 2024 State Comptroller’s report, three million Israelis suffer from moderate or severe symptoms of PTSD, depression, and anxiety, or a combination of all three, and about 580,000 suffer from at least one severe symptom. In March, a study by Ben-Gurion University identified a sharp increase in the prevalence of PTSD among 18- to 30-year-olds, from 25% before the war to 42%; and among evacuees, the rate is 60%. Researchers estimate that the cost to the country of dealing with the surge in PTSD rates could reach $50 billion over five years.
Alongside national efforts to provide assistance and solutions to PTSD sufferers, the Sderot Resilience Accelerator is working to promote bottom-up solutions by supporting startups that develop technologies and services in the field. “The vision is to establish a technological incubator that will grow and establish startups in the worlds of resilience,” said Moshe Shemi, a veteran high-tech entrepreneur who founded and leads the accelerator’s activities.
The work on this issue began even before October 7, when in 2022 Shemi led a meeting with 200 professionals from the fields of resilience. “We did a kind of hackathon with psychologists, psychiatrists, the Home Front Command, the police, and the IDF to identify their gaps, where they need technology,” he said. “On this basis, an entire ecosystem was created. I formed senior strategic partnerships: Sheba Hospital joined us from end to end, both as mentors and by pushing their startups to us. We also have financial support.”
The first cycle of the accelerator launched in 2024 and is intended for companies and ventures in the fields of resilience and health, with an emphasis on mental health and post-trauma. “We have a training system and a startup studio with an annual budget of six million shekels from National Insurance, the Sderot Municipality, and Sheba, which allows us to provide companies with mentoring, legal advice, support, and close guidance,” said Shemi.
One of the project’s goals is to attract and retain technological talent and high-tech entrepreneurs in the city. “This model is a win-win,” said Shemi. “The startups sit in Sderot, employ or teach local kids, and then they don’t have to run away to Tel Aviv at age 24. They can stay in Sderot, where there are already working startup models, and the startups themselves employ more local juniors and seniors. It’s a system that strengthens the strong population, keeps the good ones, and also brings others in. And of course, you help people, reduce state and economic costs, and set a very positive wheel in motion.”
Among the projects that have gone through the accelerator are developments offering mental health care through VR, assistance apps for those dealing with post-trauma or for rescue workers, technological tools to reduce PTSD symptoms, and platforms to make immediate mental health care accessible. Here are some of the most notable developments that have emerged from the accelerator.
Hexa: Mental First Aid in the Field
Israel’s first aid and rescue organizations, such as MDA and United Hatzalah, are among the world’s leaders in providing field treatment for physical injuries, and thanks to this, they save many lives. But in recent years, there has been a growing recognition that mental injuries can also be treated on-site. “Injury also occurs in the mind, and when you know how to provide this treatment, you can reduce post-traumatic symptoms that may develop later,” said Hexa founder and CTO, Sagi Peleg. “A medic in the field first treats physical injuries. But once the patient stabilizes or is on the way to the hospital, we can do the same for the mind. Mental first aid in the field is as important as physical first aid.”
Hexa’s solution is a digital platform for mental first aid, offering comprehensive tools for learning, training, and real-time assistance for first responders who encounter patients experiencing stress or trauma. It was developed based on the experience of CEO and founder Itai Peleg, Sagi’s father. “He was a former Home Front Command officer,” said Peleg. “He worked in many disaster zones in Israel and abroad, met people who had seen horrific scenes, and realized the mind also needs a model to cope with such events.”
Seven years ago, he met Dr. Moshe Farhi, the company’s third founder. Farhi developed the national model for providing psychological first aid, adopted by the IDF, the U.S. Army, and several others. “He understood that this was the missing link,” said Peleg.
The platform is built around three components: learning, training, and real-time support. “You can open the app during an event, enter the details, and receive tailored guidance,” Peleg explained. “For example, at a car accident, an ambulance paramedic can recognize that a person is in distress and apply the model in real time. Ideally, the responder has already trained and practiced beforehand, but if not, the app provides step-by-step instructions for handling the stressful event in the best possible way.”
Voxwell: Diagnosis Using Voice Sampling
A major obstacle in helping PTSD sufferers is diagnosis. Voxwell is addressing this challenge by developing a machine learning–based algorithm that can identify depression and other mental health conditions like PTSD using a one-minute voice sample.
“If you’re an experienced psychiatrist, when a patient walks into your office, you already know a lot, how they stand, their facial expressions,” said co-founder Dr. Dan Vilenchik of Ben-Gurion University’s School of Computer Engineering. “Depression manifests physiologically in the voice, because it affects muscles through fatigue, lack of sleep, and psychomotor slowing. It changes the way the voice is produced. Our algorithm learned to detect those patterns from hundreds of voice samples.”
Vilenchik, who founded Voxwell alongside Prof. Julie Zwickel, Ruslan Sergienko, and Efrat Kaul-Granot, said he became interested in the field after seeing a relative struggle with mental illness. “I noticed I could identify, based on slight changes in voice, when they stopped medication or their condition worsened,” he said. “When I got to academia, I realized we could do this using AI.”
Their findings are already backed by peer-reviewed research. “But in academia, it stays anecdotal, you publish and move on,” said Vilenchik. “We’re trying to bridge the gap between academic insight and a usable product.”
According to him, one likely use case is in family clinics: “A family doctor is the first line of care. In the U.S., where early diagnosis is already regulated, voice testing could be integrated easily. In Israel too, especially after October 7, awareness of mental health has increased dramatically.”
Voxwell has so far achieved about 70% diagnostic accuracy. “The main barrier is data,” said Vilenchek. “There’s no open bank of voice samples of people with depression. We collect data through clinics and patient participation, it’s slow and costly. Once we raise sufficient funding, we can move to clinical trials and launch an app within a year.”
Appscent Medical: The Good Smell Effect
One of the best-known symptoms of PTSD is waking from a nightmare in terror, with an elevated heart rate and body in panic. Appscent Medical offers a surprising remedy, a pleasant smell, and an unlikely starting point: treating sleep apnea.
“We started as a personal journey to solve my father’s apnea,” said founder and CEO Yossi Azoulay, who co-founded the company with Amos Porat. “We discovered research at the Weizmann Institute showing that certain scents can trigger breathing reflexes during sleep, allowing treatment without waking the body. It’s like pressing a ‘rebreathing’ button.”
Appscent’s device monitors patients noninvasively during sleep and releases pleasant scents when it detects apnea. “We developed a radar-based device that analyzes sleep patterns in real time,” said Azoulay. “When it detects breathing pauses, it releases a scent that gently reactivates the respiratory process. Each device contains five scents, and AI switches between them to prevent desensitization.”
Clinical trials show the system can reduce severe apnea to mild levels in a single night. The device has been approved by Israel’s Ministry of Health and recently received FDA clearance as a biofeedback device for improving sleep quality.
Appscent has also adapted its technology for PTSD patients. “Apnea triggers fight-or-flight responses, much like anxiety attacks in PTSD,” said Azoulay. “By stabilizing breathing and reducing nighttime awakenings, we reduce nightmares and help patients sleep five to seven hours instead of two.”
Lydia App: A Solution to Bureaucracy
As happened to many Israelis, Chen Shakliar’s life changed on October 7. “My partner Yariv was a police officer in Sderot that day. He fought bravely, came home, and collapsed with PTSD,” she said. “I realized I was going to war with him, for his life and his mental health.”
She wasn’t alone. “Those who experience PTSD face endless bureaucracy,” said her colleague Yulia Fridman. “Only 20% manage to access all their rights. We realized we had to simplify the process.”
Their solution is Lydia, an AI-based app that centralizes everything related to PTSD assistance except for diagnosis and therapy. “It helps locate benefits, automatically fill out forms, identify therapists and service providers, and connect users with support communities,” said Fridman.
The app’s chatbot, named Lydia after Shakliar’s Holocaust survivor grandmother, guides users step by step, from recognizing symptoms to contacting the right offices. “If a mother notices her son returned from reserve duty changed, she can start a chat with Lydia,” said Shakliar. “Lydia will draft emails, fill out forms for the Ministry of Defense, and connect her with the right professionals.”
The app was built entirely by volunteers. “A hundred programmers are developing it in their spare time,” said Fridman. “We don’t have a single shekel of funding, everything is self-financed. We plan to launch it in late September or early October and are now raising funds for operations.”
