“Ultimately, the core of healthcare is the family system. Even after all the technological advancements, it’s still the family.”
Those words were uttered by Ritankar Das, co-founder and CEO of Forta Health, during an interview on Thursday. We spoke a few hours after his startup announced a $55 million Series A funding round. Forta — which has headquarters in San Francisco and was founded in 2022 — seeks to use AI to empower family caregivers to do a better job managing their loved ones’ chronic conditions.
The Funding Model for Cancer Innovation is Broken — We Can Fix It
Closing cancer health equity gaps require medical breakthroughs made possible by new funding approaches.
It’s no secret that the U.S. healthcare system does a relatively poor job of managing patients’ chronic conditions. This is because these conditions can’t be fixed through a pill or simple procedure — it takes a considerable amount of effort and time to address them, Das pointed out.
During the quest to treat and manage their chronic conditions, patients and their families often have to experiment with a variety of different treatment options to determine which methods work best for them. They also usually have to deal with long waitlists, provider shortages and various care delays, Das noted.
At Forta, Das and his team have built a platform to help speed up families’ access to effective care.
“What human society has always done is use the family system to help heal and take care of each other. Obviously, technology has advanced a lot over time — especially the AI advances in the past decade. We thought we could make use of that technology to supercharge family caregiving and make it 10 times better,” he explained.
Reducing Clinical and Staff Burnout with AI Automation
As technology advances, AI-powered tools will increasingly reduce the administrative burdens on healthcare providers.
There are a lot of care navigation startups out there seeking to hasten care access and help people traverse the complexities of the U.S. healthcare system, but Forta’s focus on family caregiving sets it apart, Das declared.
Forta’s platform trains family caregivers to navigate various bureaucratic healthcare processes and uses algorithms to determine which course of care may be best for the particular patient at hand. The startup’s first area of focus is autism spectrum disorder (ASD).
The caregiver of a child with ASD can sign up to use Forta’s platform free of charge. Once they complete the intake process, the caregiver will complete a 50-hour training course. While the course is being completed, Forta’s AI engine analyzes the patient’s health data and medical history to determine their best course of care.
After that, families receive access to Forta’s app. Each family on the app is paired with a Forta-employed clinician who has been board-certified as a behavior analyst. This clinician supervises the patient’s family caregivers as they deliver therapy at home.
Forta has contracts in place with seven of the country’s 10 largest payers, as well as more than two dozen state government programs, according to its press announcement.
Hundreds of families have joined the app since it launched in 2022, Das said. Most of them are able to complete the full onboarding process “in a few months,” which means they were likely able to begin the therapy their child needed sooner than if they sought ASD care through traditional channels, he added.
Timely access to personalized care is especially important when it comes to children with ASD, as some therapies that target developmental issues become less effective as the child gets older, Das also pointed out.
His startup will use its Series A capital to scale its family-powered autism therapy practice, as well as refine its technology.
The funding round was led by Insight Partners. There was also participation from Exor Ventures and Alumni Ventures, as well as from the founders of several well-known companies, including 23&Me, Curative, Warby Parker and Allbirds.
Photo: eakrin rasadonyindee, Getty Images