SpectrumAi, a digital health company using artificial intelligence algorithms to improve treatments for patients on the autism spectrum, announced on June 2 it raised $9 million and plans to move to a new Signal Hill headquarters in the fall.
The company, founded last year by Ling Shao, a parent of four boys with various degrees of autism, is currently headquartered in Los Alamitos in Orange County.
SpectrumAi’s technology captures objective quality and outcomes data to improve applied behavioral analysis for individuals on the autism spectrum and at a population level.
According to the announcement, the applied behavioral analysis treatment approach for people on the autism spectrum is the only one covered by insurance policies. This approach lacks data transparency and objective measurements, the company said in the announcement.
With this analysis in hand, the company states on its website that the behaviorial analysis approach can now be adapted to a value-based treatment model in which treatment costs are capped.
SpectrumAi intends to use the money raised to boost its efforts to get its technology platform accepted by insurers, care providers, parents of autism patients and experts in the autism community.
“The unfortunate reality is that there are no universally accepted objective data standards to evaluate outcomes and improve quality of care” for patients on the autism spectrum, Shao said in the funding announcement. “As a parent of four autistic sons, I know the challenges of autism and have witnessed the power of excellence in ABA therapy.
SpectrumAi seeks to address this issue by bringing outcomes clarity and measurement to the highly subjective and fragmented ABA space.”
The funding round was co-led by Cambridge, Mass.-based F-Prime Capital and Nashville, Tenn.-based Frist Cressey Ventures, with an additional investment from San Francisco-based Autism Impact Fund.
