Founders
Jen Wirt
Description
Connecting children to in-home pediatric specialists to treat developmental delays and disabilities
We’re excited to announce our investment in Coral Care, a startup revolutionizing access to pediatric specialty care for the children who need it most. Coral connects families with developmentally delayed children to at-home care, delivered by leading pediatric specialists across physical therapy, occupational therapy, and speech language pathology. AlleyCorp is leading this $5.2M Seed round along with Reach Capital, and we’re excited to have Grey Matter joining us on the journey. This funding will enable Coral Care to expand its footprint outside of Massachusetts to 3 more states and dozens of health insurance payers by year-end.
Coral Care embodies the magic we look for when investing in Economic Infrastructure at AlleyCorp: Coral enhances access care at a critical juncture in a child’s life, unlocks meaningful additional work and earnings for providers that are in great shortage, and delivers lasting ROI for payers in the process. We’re thrilled to join Coral Care’s in its journey to revolutionize access to pediatric specialty care for all children.
Led by CEO and Founder Jen Wirt, Coral Care brings together a formidable early operating team and advisory network with experience scaling meaningful digital health platforms, including Weight Watchers, Maven Clinic, and Brightside Health. When we first met Jen in 2023, we were struck most by her founding story: her daughter was born with slight and progressively more noticeable developmental delays, missing early milestones without a clear diagnosis or available provider to see her. When she finally could get a provider who could work with her daughter, Jen spent 6+ months waiting between enrollment and first session and ultimately thousands of dollars on out-of-network private services in the process. And yet, her story was not the exception, it was the norm for the nearly 20% of families with children who experience developmental delays.
Jen founded Coral Care to ensure no family has to wait to receive the care their child needs in their earliest, most important developmental years. The problems families face are common and vast, feeding a massive demand-side challenge. Waitlists to see providers range from a few months to a few years and, according to Coral Care’s early research, nearly two-thirds of families have to contact 3-7 specialists to establish an ongoing care relationship. Families face an impossible challenge: in the short-term, they incur thousands of dollars of out-of-pocket costs that many cannot shoulder or they forgo timely care which results in suboptimal care outcomes for kids. The supply-side of the market has its own challenges: many specialists – across speech language pathology, occupational therapy, and physical therapy – are underutilized and underpaid (making $35/hour or less) in public settings and unable to pursue private practice because of the cost, demand-generation uncertainties, and heavy administration hurdles that ensue. Coral Care unlocks additional supply by enabling providers to pursue additional work easily through its platform.
Coral Care takes a different approach by building a three-sided platform that delivers meaningful value for everyone in the ecosystem: parents find vetted, available specialists at an affordable rate; providers start and grow private practices using Coral Care’s proprietary business-in-a-box tools; and payers benefit from reduced long-term costs by ensuring their members find timely care. Coral Care’s child-centered approach ensures that care is delivered in a convenient and safe environment, either in school or in the comfort of the family’s home. And Coral Care’s magic is in unlocking the large pool of latent, highly-skilled, and specialized pediatric labor supply looking to supplement their weekly income and pursue entrepreneurial practice. Coral Care’s matching system and routing algorithm ensure providers connect with families they can serve best and the results are staggering: providers can make upwards of $3K/month on the platform while delivering 98%+ NPS to the children and parents they work with. Coral Care boasts payer contracts with BCBS, Harvard Pilgrim, Cigna, United, Mass General Brigham, and others to ensure 90%+ of Massachusetts can access its provider network at deeply affordable rates.
To get in touch about partnerships with Coral Care or connect with the AlleyCorp’s Economic Infrastructure investment team, please drop us a note at youssef@alleycorp.com.
