CVS Health Ventures Leads $20M Investment in ABA Data Collection Startup SpectrumAi

SpectrumAi announced Thursday that it raised $20 million in Series A funding, with investment led by CVS Health Ventures.

The funding will help the startup push its applied behavior analysis (ABA) electronic health record, Twyll, and Patterns, its network analytics platform. 

CVS Health Ventures has made a slew of behavioral health tech-related venture investments over the last year. Other investors in the Series A round for SpectrumAi include Cobalt Ventures, with follow-on investments from seed investors F-Prime, Frist Cressey and the Autism Impact Fund. 

SpectrumAi seeks to improve data capture and bring objective measurement to ABA therapy in the autism space, a corner of the behavioral health industry that widely lacks standardization and objective measures. 

“Data collection and documentation is fundamental to creating value-based contracting for the ABA industry, and can help ensure that patients get the correct level of support they need,” Vijay Patel, managing partner at CVS Health Ventures, said in a statement. “Our investment can help support SpectrumAi’s use of disruptive technology and value-based care to address ABA’s significant data void.” 

SpectrumAi hopes to capitalize on the nascent shift from fee-for-service models, the market norm, to more innovative reimbursement models, often called value-based care.

“ABA providers and their employees crave better data capture, documentation and objective measurement of ABA therapy,” SpectrumAi CEO and founder Ling Shao said. “SpectrumAi provides front-line technicians and clinicians with powerful tools to help each child reach their optimal outcome.”

SpectrimAi’s proprietary tech is meant to help ABA treatment and the autism therapy industry past subjective provider and parent assessments of treatment efficacy.

SpectrumAi landed $9 million of seed funding in June 2022. The company was founded in Los Angeles in 2021.

SpectrumAi’s target clientele is ABA therapy providers seeking to modernize their session management practices and better track treatment.

The company also works with payers who want access to the aggregate data generated by SpectrumAi users and aim to be an impetus for value-based care adoption in ABA therapy and ASD treatment.

In January, CVS Health Ventures led a $25 million round by the Mount Laurel, New Jersey-based telepsychiatry company Array Behavioral Care. Earlier that month, it invested in the virtual care company Carbon Health.

In October 2021, it participated in the $118 million Series C funding round of Ann Arbor, Michigan-based virtual addiction treatment provider Workit Health.

The SpectrumAi investment comes at a time of significant turmoil in tech-related business. The most recent chaos of the demise of Silicon Valley Bank, Signature Bank and Silvergate Capital has shaken confidence in the American financial and investment communities.

These banking failures represent a cataclysm for investing and banking in the startup and tech-focused segments of the economy. This is especially true for new entrants to the behavioral health space that had a direct relationship with these banks or the venture capital firms that share a parallel environment with them. It also proves the end of the rosy capital markets that marked the more-than-a-decade span following the Great Recession.