At Madrona, nothing matters more to us than getting to know and support the kind of people who see the world differently and have the rare ability to build what others can’t yet imagine. That’s exactly how we felt when we first met Babak Parviz. For over a decade, we’ve known Babak not just as a technologist, but as a rare kind of entrepreneur: one with both world-changing ideas and the courage and expertise to build them. So when he and Daniel Kelly shared their vision for NewDays, we didn’t hesitate. We’re proud to have partnered with them from Day 0.
In fact, Babak spent two years as a venture partner at Madrona between his entrepreneurial chapters. It gave us a close-up view of how he thinks, builds, and approaches the hardest problems with both creativity and conviction. In our decade-plus of knowing Babak we’ve discovered that he’s not just an extraordinary technologist. He’s someone who has consistently built products that reframe what’s possible at the intersection of science and the human experience. From launching Google Glass to leading Amazon’s Grand Challenge healthcare efforts, Babak has spent his career inventing the future. With NewDays, he is applying that same ingenuity to one of the most urgent challenges we face with our aging population today: cognitive decline.
That vision has drawn strong support. NewDays recently closed a $7 million oversubscribed seed round, co-led by Madrona and General Catalyst. The funding will support expansion beyond pilot states and further investment in clinical delivery and AI capabilities.
A Growing Crisis, an Overdue Response
Today, more than one in three adults over 65 in the U.S. live with either mild cognitive impairment or dementia. Despite the scale and severity of the issue, these diagnoses are still largely met with generic advice to get their affairs in order and stay socially and physically active. Access to personalized and accessible evidence-based care remains limited, particularly for elderly populations that are vulnerable to social isolation and cognitive decline.
NewDays flips that model.
Built on decades of clinical research, the company combines telehealth visits with licensed clinicians and frequent, guided cognitive exercises delivered by an AI platform named Sunny. These are not surface-level chats. They are structured conversations rooted in cognitive stimulation therapy and cognitive training therapies informed by findings from more than 300 clinical trials, including the I-CONECT study. With this system, users practice memory, verbal fluency, emotional regulation, and problem-solving in a warm, patient, and judgment-free setting.
It’s therapy that feels like companionship. Care that happens between appointments. And more than anything, it’s a way to deliver proven cognitive therapies at scale. What matters is that it happens without losing the human and clinical touch. For years, these interventions have been limited by one thing: they’re time-intensive and rely on a small number of highly trained professionals. NewDays solves that bottleneck. The platform keeps clinicians in the loop where it matters most, while an always-available AI companion takes on the 95% of the work that has traditionally made access so hard. This is what it means to scale care without compromising it.
Where AI Meets Real-World Impact
There is no shortage of excitement around AI in healthcare, but few applications feel as urgent or as grounded in human need as this one. NewDays is not just a demonstration of what is technically possible. It is a model for how thoughtfully designed AI can extend care, augment clinical capacity, and support people in ways that were never before possible.
This is exactly the kind of company we look to support:
- Founder-led, with deep technical and domain expertise
- Science-backed, with a clear line from research to product
- Mission-aligned, solving a critical, unsolved problem for millions
We’re thrilled to support a team that combines clinical rigor with personal empathy. With early traction in Washington, California, Florida, and now Texas, and with growing momentum from both patients and caregivers, we believe NewDays is setting a new standard for cognitive care.
A Personal Note
When Babak and NewDays co-founder Daniel Kelly first told us about this idea, it did not come from a whiteboard. It came from personal experience. Like so many families, theirs have faced the realities of dementia and Alzheimer’s disease. That empathy is evident in every part of NewDays—from how the product is built to how the team talks about its mission. This is not just a technical bet. It is a human one.
That human story was recently told by The New York Times in a feature on NewDays and how AI and cutting edge cognitive research are poised to help people in ways that were never before possible.
We’re proud to be on this journey from the beginning and look forward to what Babak, Daniel, and all of Team NewDays will do next!
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