Butterfly Learnings, a pediatric development and behavioral health platform, has raised $1.5 million in a seed round. Insitor Partners, 9Unicorns, Venture Catalysts, Fondation Botnar, UTIL Stiftung, and CIIE.CO contributed to the fund.
The funds will be used to build and scale the digital product and expand its physical footprint across India, according to the full stack omnichannel that is both physical and digital. Butterfly Learnings currently operates four physical locations in Mumbai and Thane.
“Paediatric behavioral healthcare in India is far less accessible than adult healthcare, with an estimated three million children suffering from an autistic spectrum disorder in the country. The vast majority of these children are never diagnosed and consequently never treated,” said Megha Jain of Insitor Partners.
“Butterfly Learnings was founded to address this unmet need and formalise access to comprehensive quality care in a fragmented and underpenetrated sector,” added Megha Jain.
In 2022, the company hopes to expand its services across the country and provide better clinical outcomes to over 2,000 children and families.
“There is a huge unmet need in India for behavioral health for children in the 2-8-year age bracket. We at Butterfly Learnings are using an evidence-based approach to deliver better outcomes to children and their families,” said Dr. Sonam Kothari, co-founder and CEO of Butterfly Learnings.
Butterfly Learnings is trying to disrupt the pediatric behavioral healthcare space
Butterfly Learnings, founded in 2021 by Sonam Kothari and Abhishek Sen, is a full-stack omnichannel pediatric development and behavioral health platform that employs techniques like applied behavioral analysis (ABA), speech therapy, and occupational therapy through an integrated in-person and digital platform.
Dr. Sonam Kothari is a board-certified behavioral analyst and pediatric neurologist. At the same time, Dr. Sen is an entrepreneur whose most recent venture, Biosense Technologies, was acquired by Perkin Elmer-owned Tulip Diagnostics in 2019.
“Paediatric behavioral healthcare is on the rise not only in India but globally as well. According to global reports, one in seven kids below 15 feels depressed. Besides, post-Covid, there has been a spike in such incidents, but there are many pediatric therapists in the country who still believe mental health is taboo,” said Dr. Apoorva Ranjan Sharma, co-founder of Venture Catalysts and 9Unicorns.
