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Company news · August 2026
Clear30 accepted into the Headstream Innovation accelerator
The accelerator pairs each company with young people to test what it is building and give direct feedback. For Clear30, that is the whole point.
Clear30 has been accepted into the Headstream Innovation accelerator, a program by SecondMuse focused on the mental well-being of young people, with support from Pivotal Ventures, a Melinda French Gates company.
Headstream Innovation supports entrepreneurs working on the most urgent challenges in youth mental well-being, expanding access to capital and mentorship with particular attention to founders serving systemically excluded communities. It has worked with more than 80 entrepreneurs across Health Tech, EdTech and Social Tech, and its programs have reached more than 8.5 million young people.
We applied for one reason: youth co-creation. Headstream holds that young people deserve a voice in developing the products designed to support their mental well-being, and it backs that up structurally by pairing each company in the accelerator with young people who test the product, talk with the team and give feedback directly. Headstream describes this as designing with, not just for, the next generation.
“What I am most excited about is the co-creation with youth that Headstream provides. Our product would not be what it is without the continuous testing and engagement and the voices of young people. Almost everything we build is for Gen Z, so the people it is for should have a say in how it gets made.”
Julian Singleton, Head of Campus Partnerships, Clear30
Under our NIH Phase I grant we needed content for people under 21, an age group with almost no dedicated cannabis support. It was written by subject-matter experts and built in collaboration with young people throughout, from what the messages should say to how they sound, with many of the videos performed by young people in their own voices and cultural perspectives.
That work taught us the thing we keep coming back to: reaching young people is what young people are best at telling you how to do. It is a large part of how Clear30 got where it is. The accelerator is a chance to keep going, talking to as many young people as we can and getting their feedback on all of it, the education and screening program, the app, and the intervention.
Cannabis sits awkwardly inside youth mental well-being conversations, which is part of why so little exists for this age group. Regular use among young people is associated with elevated risk for mood disorders, anxiety and psychosis, and THC potency has risen three- to five-fold, with the sharpest risk falling on the youngest users. Yet fewer than one in ten people with cannabis use disorder receives any formal care, and the reasons young people give are consistent: fear of judgment, not knowing what exists, and the belief they can handle it alone.
Our answer has been to ask for a 30-day break rather than a diagnosis, and to build something that reaches people in the places they already are rather than waiting for them to seek care. The technology is not a substitute for a clinician. It is a way to meet young people where they are, and to help the adults around them focus attention on those who need it most.
“Young people have tuned out most of the messaging older generations put in front of them about drugs and alcohol, and cannabis especially. Co-creating with them is how we build messaging that lands rather than messaging we assume works, and it already sets us apart.”
Dr. Fred Muench, Co-Founder and Chief Science Officer, Clear30
Youth mental well-being is one of the few issues that holds across political lines, which is what makes progress on it possible. We are glad to be working on it alongside a program built around that premise.