Sleep is one of the largest unsolved problems in consumer health. One in three adults globally suffer from chronic sleep deprivation. The US sleep economy already exceeds $20B, yet most outcomes have not meaningfully improved. Most solutions track or supplement sleep, very few actively intervene in sleep physiology.
Sleep is not simply behavioural: it is autonomic. The distinction shaped our evaluation of DUSQ.
Dr. Siddhant Bhargava, Shalmali Kadu and Mitansh Khurana combine clinical training, regulated hardware execution and scaled consumer health operating experience to solve the sleep crisis using clinically validated vagus nerve stimulation (VNS) technology.
From insights to intervention
DUSQ is building a sleep-first wearable designed for overnight autonomic modulation using non-invasive VNS. The challenge has not been science. It has been productization.
Most neuromodulation devices are session-based, bulky or unsuitable for continuous overnight wear. Sleep, however, is an eight-hour problem.
DUSQ’s low-profile, behind-the-ear device integrates heart rate, pulse wave variability, respiratory rate and skin conductance into a closed-loop system that adapts stimulation dynamically through the night.
The ambition is not to understand sleep. It is to improve it.
Medicine meets engineering
Siddhant previously scaled Food Darzee, gaining deep experience in consumer acquisition, retention and unit economics alongside medical training. Shalmali built in-house manufacturing capability and leads hardware architecture and form-factor design. Mitansh, a BITS Pilani gold medalist in Mathematics and Computing, brings deep systems thinking to firmware, real-time signal processing and regulatory execution, building the closed-loop architecture that underpins DUSQ’s personalization engine.
The broader team spans hardware engineering, embedded systems and clinical validation, supported by senior neurologists and psychiatrists advising on study design, safety frameworks and physiological endpoints. That combination of systems-level engineering and credible medical oversight is critical when building a device operating at the intersection of consumer wellness and autonomic modulation.
Clinical validation and product evolution
DUSQ’s core technology is patent-protected and has undergone multiple clinical evaluations across thousands of users. Early studies generated encouraging signals across autonomic regulation and sleep quality, reinforcing the potential of vagus nerve modulation as a sleep-focused intervention.
The initial pilot in India provided a critical insight. While short relaxation sessions showed engagement, user demand centred on uninterrupted sleep through the night.
Rather than optimizing the existing device incrementally, the team paused sales and rebuilt the product specifically for overnight use. The form factor was redesigned for 6-8 hours of continuous wear, the sensor stack was expanded to include heart rate, pulse wave variability, respiratory rate and skin conductance, and the software layer was re-architected to enable adaptive biofeedback through the night.
That shift from session-based usage to overnight modulation materially changed the product.
A closed-loop sleep system
DUSQ is designed as a closed-loop system monitoring physiological signals & adjusting stimulation based on real-time autonomic response across sleep stage transitions. Over time, this enables increasing personalization grounded in individual nervous system behaviour rather than fixed routines.
Built on extensive physiological signal analysis and multi-year research, the system is designed to detect drift toward wakefulness and modulate stimulation accordingly.
The accompanying app simplifies this complexity into an interpretable sleep score and guided onboarding, reducing placement errors and lowering friction for new users.
The intent is not to provide more data about sleep. It is to build a feedback-driven intervention layer that improves sleep physiology over time.
The Fireside perspective
The first wave of sleep innovation created awareness. The next wave will be defined by intervention.
DUSQ is building at that intersection of physiology, engineering and personalization. By designing specifically for overnight use and embedding closed-loop feedback into the architecture, the team is attempting to shift sleep technology from passive measurement to active modulation.
Through our journey with Inito in the US market, we have seen how device led health categories scale when they deliver credible and repeatable outcomes. Sleep is a category ready for that transition.
We believe intervention, not insight will define the future of sleep technology. DUSQ is building to lead that shift.
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