Blue(y) skies ahead

Pumpkin spice is back on the menu, and kids are back in the classroom. Parents and caregivers are once again being met with a wave of advice for navigating the start of a new school year. But for families of children with autism, the transition can expose how fragmented their child’s care remains. Digital health solutions designed to close those gaps are gaining funding momentum. This year, AnswersNow collected $40M to expand its virtual applied behavior analysis (ABA) therapy platform; in-home pediatric speech therapy, OT, and PT provider Coral Care landed $13M to grow nationwide; and Ladder Health's $7M Seed round will scale virtual developmental care designed to shorten pediatric therapy wait times. Autism care is moving closer to where children live and learn, just as reimbursement grows less predictable and providers face greater pressure to demonstrate outcomes and control costs.

Autism care is just one part of a broader evolution in pediatric digital health. With fresh capital, Handspring Health is scaling a value-based care model built around in-house clinician employee training and dedicated parental support, while Flourish Health is leveraging in-home care designed to avoid more intensive settings like hospitals and residential treatment. As digital tools become a larger part of how young people receive support, safeguards need to reflect different developmental and communication needs. With recent survey data showing teen mental health is beginning to recover from pandemic lows, there’s reason for watchful optimism.

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Recent Funding

• Faro banks $37.3M to expand its agentic AI infrastructure for biopharma clinical development
• Open-source patient record retrieval startup Metriport raises $26M 
• Arintra secures $25M to scale its autonomous medical coding and revenue assurance software
• Clinical intelligence platform for behavioral health Onos Health lands $17M
• Switchboard Health collects $5M alongside its acquisition of MSK provider Livara Health