Amsterdam-based BRAVR Applied sciences has raised €130k in pre-Seed funding to develop transportable, VR-based psychological resilience coaching for army and civilian personnel.
Designed for scalability, the system goals to offer efficient psychological readiness coaching at unprecedented scale.
“Efficient stress resilience coaching means simulating excessive environments, which is harmful, costly, and often reserved for particular forces – leaving most recruits weak,” says Ken Koontz, Founder and Chief Designer of BRAVR. “This funding permits us to show our demonstration expertise right into a plug-and-play product prepared for testing and analysis. Finally, we’re aiming to offer instructors the instruments to coach and preserve psychological readiness throughout thousands and thousands of law enforcement officials, firefighters, and NATO troopers.”
Based in 2025, BRAVR Applied sciences has a group spanning Zeeland, Gelderland, and Amsterdam, constructing biofeedback-integrated VR coaching methods to enhance psychological readiness and resilience.
BRAVR’s system prompts the physique’s stress response utilizing immersive VR, whereas reportedly measuring coronary heart fee variability (HRV) in actual time. This biofeedback is built-in into gameplay, serving to customers recognise and prepare their automated physiological response to emphasize. The aim is improved efficiency in stress conditions and long-term resilience.
Maj. Normal (Ret.) Cornell A. Wilson Jr. of the US Marine Corps, an advisor to the startup, says: “BRAVR affords an fascinating device for NATO troopers and civilians. This device may help develop a person’s ability to maintain calm throughout chaotic moments, critically assess the state of affairs, and ship outcomes primarily based on skilled coaching.”
Troopers, police, firefighters face excessive eventualities as part of their job. In line with BRAVR, acute stress triggered in these moments can impair decision-making, trigger bodily shutdown, and result in long-term psychological well being points.
“Acute stress can damage troopers’ lives lengthy after the battlefield,” says Captain Jens Serup, former head of the Danish Military’s ‘Conduct After Seize’ programme. “Coaching psychological resilience doesn’t simply assist beneath hearth; it issues in captivity, and once they come dwelling. BRAVR may give extra of our bravest women and men the abilities to guard themselves and the individuals round them for the long run.”
