The pediatric mental healthcare market is booming, and one startup building in the space just landed $55 million in new funding to expand its autism therapy practice with machine learning.
The healthcare startup, Forta, raised a Series A funding round in January led by Insight Partners. Exor Ventures and Alumni Ventures also participated in the round, along with a handful of angel investors who founded consumer startups including Warby Parker, Allbirds, and 23&Me.
Founded in 2021, Forta provides therapy for children with autism and their families. The startup offers parent-led applied behavior analysis (ABA) therapy, where parents are trained to deliver treatment to their children instead of visiting a therapist.
Forta also uses an AI model to personalize treatment options for families using the service. The new tech is helping the startup increase access to care for more and more families, explained Ritankar Das, Forta’s cofounder and CEO.
“The massive shortage of clinicians is preventing many children on the spectrum from receiving care,” he told Business Insider. “At Forta, our platform uses intelligent software and AI to personalize therapy to each individual by learning from prior cases, in addition to automating administrative tasks.”
Das added that because every child using Forta receives personalized care, the startup’s AI is trained to look at health records and recommend treatments.
Indeed, a clinician shortage is creating opportunities for digital health startups to build out mental healthcare services. Mental health coaching startup tapouts just raised a $3.2 million seed round, while incumbents Brightline and Hazel Health have each raised tens of millions of dollars to provide pediatric mental healthcare.
One of the largest autism care startups in the space, Elemy, has raised nearly $300 million from VC investors, although the startup has also struggled to deliver patient care and recently pivoted to selling enterprise software.
With the influx in new funding, Forta is now focused on growing its patient population within the context of machine learning.
“We will continue research and development to bring the latest AI breakthroughs including large language models to improve care quality for autism, Alzheimer’s, and other chronic diseases,” Das said.
Take a look at the 14-slide pitch deck Forta used to raise its $55 million Series A funding round.
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