A calm button you wear behind your ear. Non-invasive vagus nerve stimulation, paired with an AI meditation coach, built to quiet stress and burnout.
The gesture looks unremarkable. A person adjusts what appears to be a pair of wired earbuds, taps their phone, and keeps working. What is actually happening is quieter and stranger: gentle electrical pulses are traveling to the vagus nerve behind each ear, nudging a racing body back toward calm. No pill. No appointment. No one at the next desk any the wiser.
That understated moment is the whole point of Roga. The company builds a non-invasive vagus nerve stimulation device and an AI-guided meditation app that work together to reduce stress and burnout. It is designed for the ordinary bad afternoon, not the therapist's calendar three weeks out.
Roga was founded in 2020 by two people who were not studying stress from a comfortable distance. CEO Ami Lebendiker helped bring Google's Pixel phones to market before burnout pushed him out. His co-founder, neuroscientist Alison Smith, left academia for the same reason. Both had lived with clinical anxiety. The product is, in a real sense, the tool they wished had existed.
The bet is unfashionable in the best way. While much of the wellness industry sells another subscription and another guided recording, Roga chose hardware and evidence - the two hardest things a small company can pick. A device you can wear all day. Studies you can actually read.
We built Roga to give people a better tool to manage their wellbeing and mental health.
The scoreboard. Reported figures from Roga and press coverage; results vary by person and use.
Place the discreet, behind-the-ear device on like a set of earbuds and connect it to your phone.
The Roga app sends gentle, non-invasive pulses to the vagus nerve - the body's main parasympathetic brake.
Pair the stimulation with AI-personalized meditation and journaling, then track your progress over time.
Read the fine print. Self-reported and beta results, not a clinical guarantee.
People download meditation apps and quit within a week. A device is different - you put it on, and you keep it on. Among Roga's first corporate clients, engagement ran around 35%, a number talk-therapy benefits rarely touch. Stress does not keep office hours, so Roga is built for the moment you actually need it.
A discreet behind-the-ear wearable delivering gentle, non-invasive pulses to reduce stress, improve sleep, and support focus. Priced around $249-$269.
Activates the device and delivers AI-generated, personalized guided meditations, journaling, and a progress dashboard.
Devices and the app packaged for employers running mental health and burnout-reduction programs.
Studies run through the University of Waterloo and a Toronto-area hospital, funded in part by a MITACS Accelerate grant.
Employees typically don't want to engage with a talk therapist because of the scheduling demands.
Roga closed a pre-seed round via SAFE in June 2024 - its first external financing - to fund manufacturing, engineering, and go-to-market for a next-generation, wireless, more concealable device.
Roga founded by Ami Lebendiker and Alison Smith after both leave careers to burnout.
First stress-relief device, "Roga Life," opens for orders worldwide.
Launches in India, billed as the country's first wearable for mental health.
Closes $1.7M CAD pre-seed round.
Next-gen wireless device announced.
Back to 3 p.m. on a bad day. Before Roga, that moment had two exits: white-knuckle it until five, or book a therapist for a Tuesday two weeks away. Neither helps the racing heart happening right now.
Roga added a third door - one you can open in ten seconds without anyone noticing. It will not cure everything, and the company is careful not to promise that. But it changes the shape of the afternoon. The person adjusts their earbuds, taps their phone, and keeps working - a little calmer, a little more themselves. That is the small, quiet revolution Roga is after.