Disclosures & Funding

Company & funding model

Therapy withVR is the software developed by withVR (legal entity withVR BV, Belgium). The company has been bootstrapped from the outset. Development and operations are funded by a combination of:

• Subscription revenue from clinicians, researchers, and educators
• Consultancy fees - some researchers and institutions pay withVR directly for specific services such as research meetings, clinical advice, custom software development, and research-protocol collaboration
• Selected public grants and accelerator support (listed below)

There are no outside equity investors at the time of writing. No paid advisory fees, kickbacks, or referral commissions are received from any research institution or publication.

Accelerators & grant support

Historical and current - inclusion here does not imply an active ongoing relationship with every organization listed.

Sponsorships from withVR to the community

In the other direction, withVR has sponsored stuttering organizations and events that I believe matter, without seeking anything in return beyond acknowledgment:

Research relationships

Therapy withVR is used in active research at universities and hospitals across several countries. Named publicly available collaborations include:

The full list of active research using Therapy withVR is maintained separately on the Therapy withVR studies page, so studies directly involving the product are easy to identify.

Founder affiliations

I am Gareth Walkom - founder and CEO of withVR, and a person who stutters. The following current affiliations and relationships are relevant to how I interact with the research and clinical community:

• Research Affiliate at The George Washington University.
• Member (MBCS) of the British Computer Society.
• Co-author on peer-reviewed research that uses Therapy withVR (e.g. Leyns et al. 2025). These relationships are disclosed directly on the relevant study pages in the Evidence Hub.
• Chapter author in Artificial Intelligence, Automation, and Extended Reality in Speech-Language Pathology (editors Nerissa Hall and Michelle Boisvert; Plural Publishing, 2025). Author of Chapter 10 and co-author of Chapter 1.
• Paid consultancy. Some researchers and institutions pay withVR consultancy fees for meetings, advice, custom software development, and research-protocol collaboration. These are commercial engagements, separately accounted from editorial decisions on this site.
• No paid advisory roles at research institutions, hospitals, or related companies.

Recognition

Independent media coverage

withVR has no commercial or paid relationship with any of the outlets below.

• Google Cloud Blog - Discover how VR software helps people with speech disorders
• VLAIO - Virtual reality helpt mensen met hun spraakmoeilijkheden
• Data News - Starter van de week: withVR
• Trends (Knack) - Virtuele realiteit helpt mensen met spraakstoornis
• NOS Jeugdjournaal - Ben stottert en krijgt hulp van deze VR-bril

Conflicts of interest

As the company building this software, withVR has a direct commercial interest in positive research findings about VR-based speaking practice, and in the broader perception of the research field. I am open about that. The steps I take to keep content on this site honest despite that interest are:

• Per-study funding disclosure. Every study page in the Evidence Hub carries an explicit note about withVR's relationship to the paper - independent, product-used but independently funded, or founder co-authored - so readers see the relationship at a glance.
• Negative findings are summarized with the same framing as positive ones (e.g. Johansen et al. 2026, where the primary outcome was null).
• Social-model framing. The site deliberately avoids deficit-framed claims about the people Therapy withVR is used with.

I do not have a formal external editorial review process for Evidence Hub summaries. withVR is a small company - realistically, I write and edit these myself. That is a real limitation of a one-person editorial process, and I name it here rather than imply otherwise. If something on this site is inaccurate or misleading, please email hello@withvr.app and I will correct it.

Editorial independence

No funder, accelerator, grant body, partner, research institution, consultancy client, or media outlet has influence over which studies appear in the Evidence Hub or how they are summarized. Editorial decisions are mine alone, made to reflect the underlying research honestly - including when that research is unflattering to VR, or to withVR specifically.