After Brandon Terry and his wife learned that their daughter was born with a rare genetic condition, the couple was directed to start early intervention.

That “early intervention” took two years. They scrambled to find a speech therapists, occupational therapists, physical therapists and other specialists while also navigating the tangle of insurance-based clinics, private practice providers and referrals. Terry’s wife even quit her job to manage their child’s team of healthcare workers.

“We felt it was very fragmented,” Terry said. “There were a lot of great clinicians, but it’s very hard to find and get connected with the best bit clinicians for your child. It took us years to build her team. And then we just found that it was very expensive and therefore very inaccessible.”

The experience led Terry to start Village, a Culver City-based health tech platform meant to help healthcare workers and parents triage patient care. The company announced in early May it raised $9.5 million. The round was led by Santa Monica-based Upfront Ventures, with additional participation from Perceptive Ventures, Bling Capital and GTMFund.

Specialized healthcare needs

While parts of the healthcare system are notoriously isolated from each other, the same can’t be said for care. A 2024 study found that 19% of children in the U.S. have specialized healthcare needs that require care coordination between multiple parties. Their parents often experience high levels of stress as they navigate unpredictable health outcomes, financial restraints and coordinating between different medical professionals.

“Too many families spend precious time and money navigating a system that was never designed for them – a journey marked by confusion, isolation, and unmet expectations,” Kesar Varma, a partner at Upfront Ventures, said in a statement.

At Village, the company onboards providers – mostly pediatric therapy centers – and put them in a hub with a patient’s other healthcare experts. The platform is HIPAA compliant and manages insurance paperwork on behalf of the provider. Village also acts as a referral network for families who are looking for pediatric therapy on the Village’s network of providers.

“If you want to solve this problem for families, interestingly enough, most of what you build actually needs to be around making providers’ lives easier so that they have the tools they need to then participate in that coordinated model and more accessible model,” Terry said.

So far, the company has onboarded more than 400 providers spanning speech therapy, occupational therapy and behavioral health, with plans to include Applied Behavior Analysis therapists down the road.

“Multidisciplinary care models are more effective,” Terry said. “They create better outcomes for kids.”