The growing problem of ‘tech addiction’ spawns a new detox economy

As I’ve been rewatching HBO’s Silicon Valley, my favorite roast of the first season is the incessant refrain that tech is “making the world a better place.”

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But that isn’t always true, by any stretch of the imagination. I’ve been thinking that I’ve spent a lot of time covering the capital and companies, but not nearly enough time writing about the world this technology creates. I was especially thinking that as I read my colleague Kristin Stoller’s new feature about tech addiction, published this week. It’s a story that spans years and companies. Case in point:

At age six, Sarah Hill was handed her first iPad by her parents, which she used to play games like Angry Birds and Minecraft whenever she was bored. By age 21, the Alabama native had fallen so deep into virtual reality experiences and playing video games that she’d stopped seeing friends, showering, and brushing her teeth. “If you compare video game and tech addiction to drugs,” she says, “VR is the meth of drugs.”

At college, she spent so much time holed up in her room compulsively accessing a chatbot site, Character AI, on her phone that she failed classes. “I remember the night I told my parents I’d lied about everything and I flunked,” she recalls. “My parents didn’t have any words. They were like, ‘Just go.’ I went to my room, but the last thing I saw was my mom resting her elbows on the counter and just crying. That was the worst thing I ever saw.”

Hill’s parents flew with her from Alabama to a town just outside of Seattle and enrolled her at reSTART, one of the nation’s few residential treatment programs for digital overuse that treats tech addiction as a danger on the scale of alcohol or drug addiction.

Though some say tech addiction doesn’t exist, evidence is mounting that the growing string of legal cases against startups like Character and giants like Meta, Alphabet-owned YouTube, and TikTok could create an unambiguous inflection point.

Read more about who gets addicted—and whether tech is approaching a “Big Tobacco” moment here.

See you tomorrow,

Allie Garfinkle

X: @agarfinks

Email: alexandra.garfinkle@fortune.com

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VENTURE CAPITAL

- Qualified Health, a Palo Alto, Calif.-based enterprise AI platform for health systems, raised $125 million in Series B funding. New Enterprise Associates led the round and was joined by Transformation Capital, GreatPoint Ventures, and others.

- Immutrin, a Cambridge, U.K.-based biotech company focused on developing antibody therapy to reverse amyloidosis, raised £65 million ($87 million) in Series A funding. Frazier Life Sciences led the round and was joined by F-Prime, Qiming Venture Partners, SR Onem, and existing investors.

- Highlight AI, a San Francisco-based intelligent operating system for teams and AI agents, raised $40 million in Series A funding. Khosla Ventures led the round and was joined by 359 Capital, General Catalyst, and others.

- Spade, a New York City-based data and AI platform for financial institutions, raised $40 million in Series B funding. Oak HC/FT led the round and was joined by Andreessen Horowitz, Flourish, Gradient, NAventures, and others.

- Worth, an Orlando, Fla.-based onboarding and underwriting platform for small and medium-sized businesses, raised $30 million in Series A funding. Fulcrum Equity Partners led the round and was joined by Amex Ventures and TTV Capital.

- EPIC Microsystems, a Santa Clara, Calif.-based semiconductor company, raised $21 million in Series A funding. Seligman Ventures led the round and was joined by Intel Capital, AICONIC Ventures, and others.

- Cauldron Ferm, an Orange, Australia-based biomanufacturing company, raised $13.3 million in Series A2 funding. Main Sequence Ventures led the round and was joined by Horizons Ventures, SOSV, and NGS Super.

- Eunice, a London, U.K.-based developer of AI for due diligence, raised $8 million across seed and pre-seed rounds. Moonfire Ventures and Speedinvest led the round and were joined by Openspace Ventures.

- Airbase, a New York City-based developer of software for radiofrequency spectrum coordination infrastructure, raised $5 million in funding. Andreessen Horowitz led the round and was joined by Squadra Ventures and Founders You Should Know.

- Galtea, a Barcelona, Spain-based AI evaluation platform, raised $3.2 million in seed funding. 42CAP led the round and was joined by Mozilla Ventures and existing investors.

PRIVATE EQUITY

- Advent International agreed to acquire a majority stake in Salt & Stone, a Los Angeles, Calif.-based body care brand. Financial terms were not disclosed.

- Bansk Group agreed to acquire a majority interest in So Good So You, a Minneapolis, Minn.-based wellness brand. Financial terms were not disclosed.

- Innovative Systems, backed by GTCR, acquired Actifai, a Washington, D.C.-based AI platform designed for broadband