Signal Hill-based SpectrumAi Inc., which is developing an analytics platform to assist in the treatment of autism, has closed a $20 million series A investment round.
The investment round, announced last week, was led by CVS Health Ventures, a unit of Woonsocket, Rhode Island-based CVS Health Corp. Also participating in the funding round were new investor Cobalt Ventures of Kansas City, Missouri, and returning investors F-Prime Capital of Cambridge, Massachusetts, First Cressey Ventures of Nashville, Tennessee and San Francisco-based Autism Impact Fund.
SpectrumAi was founded two years ago by Ling Shao, a parent of four boys with varying degrees of autism. Its artificial intelligence platform captures objective quality and outcomes data to improve applied behavioral analysis for individuals on the autism spectrum and at a population level.
Autism is the fastest-growing developmental disability in the United States; some of that growth is due to improved diagnosis in recent decades. Applied behavioral analysis, or ABA, is intensive and long-term therapy, averaging up to 25-40 hours each week. Measurement of ABA therapy’s efficacy to date has been limited to subjective parent and provider surveys.
SpectrumAi’s goal is to adapt applied behavioral analysis to a value-based treatment model in which treatment costs are capped.
Last year, SpectrumAi raised $9 million in a seed financing round, with plans to use the money to boost efforts to get its technology platform accepted by insurers, care providers, parents of autism patients and experts in the autism community.
According to the company’s announcement last week, this most recent round of $20 million in series A financing will be used to integrate the company’s applied behavior analysis with electronic health record systems and to improve data capture and objective measurement of applied behavioral application therapy for autism.
“ABA providers and their employees crave better data capture, documentation and objective measurement of ABA therapy,” Shao, SpectrumAi’s chief executive, said. “SpectrumAi provides front-line technicians and clinicians with powerful tools to help each child reach their optimal outcome.”
