Denver-based autism therapy provider Soar Autism Center has raised about $16 million in equity funding. 

The funding represents Soar’s Series A funding round and will help the company expand its business systems, employee headcount and clinical footprint.

The husband-wife duo Ian and Jennifer Goldstein founded the company in 2020. Ian Goldstein serves as CEO, while Jennifer Goldstein serves as COO.

Soar Autism Center disclosed in a public filing it had raised $15.9 million. Ian Goldstein told Behavioral Health Business the funding round will likely close with an additional $1 million when it closes in the coming days. 

The first offering in the round sold on Nov. 23, 2022. It also included 19 investors, the filing states.

Incorporated as Soar Health Inc., the company has disclosed raising a total of $19.5 million since January 2021.

Soar Autism Center operates four centers in the Denver metro area. It offers naturalistic Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) therapy, diagnostic, speech therapy, occupational therapy and psychological services. It centers its care on the Early Start Denver Model, according to its website.

“This [round] comes with the backdrop of our unique clinical model,” Goldstein told BHB. “To do that well and with fidelity requires a broader group of clinical experts to bring that alive at scale.”

Moving forward, the company aims to expand its footprint in Colorado.

It is also entertaining expansion outside of Colorado, Goldstein said. But it’s too early in the process to discuss those efforts in detail, he added.

The demand for autism-related therapies has significantly increased in the last several years.

Following a successful campaign by advocates to require some level of coverage for services, investors and autism providers saw an opportunity to grow platform businesses, making it one of the hottest areas of investment in behavioral health.

In part, the clinical detection and social sensitivity to autism has prompted a decades-long increase in the population rated of autism and related conditions. The latest estimates place that rate at 1 in 32 and 1 in 29.
Colorado had an autism rate of 1 in 76, according to a 2020 CDC estimate.