Digital autism company EarliTec Diagnostics has raised $21.5 million in a Series B funding round.
Decatur, Georgia-based EarliTec will use the cash to fund clinical research evaluating its early autism diagnosis technology. The technology aims to aid clinicians in diagnosing and assessing autism in toddlers.
Nexus NeuroTech Ventures and Venture Investors Health Fund led the funding round.
“EarliTec is pioneering diagnostic and treatment solutions for children with autism, and we’re thrilled to support their innovative efforts,” Jim Adox, executive managing director at Venture Investors Health Fund, said in a statement.
Children evaluated using EarliTec’s method watch videos of social interactions on a tablet. An embedded biomarker tracks the child’s focus on the scenes and assesses social disability, verbal ability and non-verbal learning.
The technology uses eye tracking to capture the child’s moment-by-moment-looking behavior 120 times per second, which is otherwise imperceptible to the human eye. These data are then compared to that of typically developing children to detect early signs of autism.
The diagnosis method, EarliPoint Evaluation, can be used for children aged 16 to 30 months who are suspected to have autism. There are currently 12 EarliPoint devices operating in eight centers across six U.S. states.
“There is a severe unmet need in autism diagnosis, and families often face a challenging path to diagnosis of autism due to the lack of innovation in the space and limited access to expert clinicians,” Dr. Ami Klin, chief clinical officer and founder of EarliTec, said in a statement. “For the first time, clinicians have a tool to objectively understand where a child is on the spectrum, reach a diagnosis, and deliver personalized care.”
The EarliPoint process was cleared by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in 2022 and again in 2023 for a second-generation version of the device. Georgia Medicaid included EarliPoint in its medical coverage earlier this year, allowing low-income families to access the technology.
The technology was developed by researchers at Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta, Emory University School of Medicine and Yale University and funded by billionaire Bernard Marcus, who co-founded The Home Depot.
While autism spectrum disorder (ASD) can sometimes be detected in children younger than 2 years old, many people do not receive a final diagnosis until they are much older, which can prevent people with ASD from getting the early help they need.
Earlier diagnosis of autism could also lead to $2.5 million of lifetime savings, sources told Autism Business News earlier this month.
Other companies have also dived into the early autism diagnosis space. Behavioral health-focused virtual reality company Floreo recently acquired Autism Eyes, an autism diagnosis tool that also utilizes eye tracking.