Lumos Labs Gets $3 Million Funding for Brain Games

As you age your brain slows down, your memory goes, and your attention lapses. Online brain fitness games like Lumosity sell the promise of stopping that decline. But as the chart below shows, it is all downhill after 30. (The chart is based on the brain performance index scores of 40,000 Lumosity users). Lumosity lets members play games designed to improve their memory, processing speed, and attention.

I've tried the games, and they are rather satisfying. One requires you to locate a bird that appears on the screen for a split second, while at the same time identifying a letter that flashes elsewhere on the screen. (It's harder than it sounds). Others include a maze memory game and a symbol-matching one. Members pay $10 a month, with a free, 7-day trial.

The company is announcing today that Pequot Ventures, Norwest Venture Partners, and earlier angel investors, including Michael Dearing, are putting $3 million into the startup. Pequot's Amish Jani says:

We've been doing a ton in gaming, and have looked at a lot of casual games plays, but this is one of the few with a solid business model out of the gate, a unique value proposition, and has been growing very nicely.

As Boomers get older, he thinks they are going to do anything they can to stave off the inevitable. And if they can have fun trying, so much the better. Traffic to the site, while small at 330,000 unique visitors worldwide in April (comScore), is picking up. And if only ten percent of those visitors convert into paying members, that is still a tidy and growing business.