Autism provider Cortica has raised an $80 million equity round.

The funds will help the San Diego-based multispecialty pediatric therapy provider beef up its in-house-build technology stack to improve its precision medicine approach, deepen its market presence and help land innovative value-based care contracts.

“We already have a great model that works extremely well,” Neil Hattangadi, CEO of Cortica, told Autism Business News. “The technology enablement of that model continues.”

Cortica treats those with autism with a whole-person, all-in-one clinical model that assembles behavioral health services and physical health specialties such as developmental pediatrics, neurophysiology, genetics, gastroenterology and nutrition.

This holistic approach helped bring Cortica’s new investors — Morgan Health and Nexus NeuroTech Ventures — into the fold. These two firms co-led the round with participation from the Autism Impact Fund.

Morgan Health, an affiliate of the banking and finance titan JPMorgan Chase & Co.

(NYSE: JPM), invests in companies that seek to make employer-sponsored health care better. Cortica’s model fit well in that mission.

“Autism and neurodevelopmental conditions in general — ADHD speech delays, pediatric behavioral health conditions — are a huge source of stress for employees who, as parents, are trying to find the right diagnostic providers, the right set of treatment providers, often bouncing between multiple groups and managing conflicting recommendations,” Hattangadi said. “So they wanted to create a cohesive, coordinated care experience, and they found that in Cortica.”

Nexus NeuroTech Ventures makes investments in companies that address neurodegenerative, neuropsychiatric, and neurodevelopmental disorders. The Autism Impact Fund specializes in autism-focused startups in technology, health care and biotech.

“They’ve continued to prove they’re the preeminent service provider in this autism space, across innovation, unique care models,” Chris Male, CEO of the Autism Impact Fund, told ABN. “We’ve just been really happy with what they’ve done, continue to do and are looking to do. So, we wanted to support that. I think they’re years ahead of anyone trying to compete.”

The Autism Impact Fund made its initial investment in Cortica in 2022.

Cortica continues to win over investors with its model and now 10-year track record. The new round brings the company’s total funding raised to $255 million, based on historical data from Crunchbase. The company raised $115 million in 2023.

Hattangadi described an experience similar to others that have landed funding in the last several months: It’s a much more thorough and longer due diligence process.

“In the past, it would be, ‘A market is big and that company is serving the market,’ that’s it,” Hattangadi said. “Now it is, ‘Let’s really understand in detail how a company’s solution addresses the market need, not just now, but in the future.'”

The investors in this round spent months understanding the clinical care model, care outcomes, cost of care, care savings, technology systems and scalability.

“It was only upon being satisfied with all of those things that they felt comfortable investing,” Hattangadi said.

The round and investors also differed from previous funding rounds in other ways, Hattangadi said. While some previous investors were purely interested in the financial aspect of Cortica’s work, the investors in this round, while also concerned about ROI, are especially interested in Cortica’s work in undoing the fee-for-services, discrete services model in the autism therapy space. The status quo autism therapy reimbursement model incentivizes overutilization, he said.

Male also decried the traditional reimbursement model, adding that it fails to account for several aspects of the patient’s health, such as physical health, biological and environmental factors.

“The traditional model just isn’t working, and this new approach aligns well with our thesis around whole child, whole family care,” Male said. “If you’re not taking into effect all of those, you’re squandering gains that can be made. I think that’s being proven out with better outcomes, fewer ABA hours and other kinds of traditional modalities with improved outcomes. Is a win, win, win for investors, the families and the community, and Cortico as well.”