Paediatric health startup Butterfly Learnings raises Rs 32 crore led by Insitor

Paediatric behavioural and developmental health platform Butterfly Learnings on Thursday announced that it completed a series A funding round raising Rs 32 crore.

Insitor Impact Asia Fund II and Enzia Ventures led the funding. Other participants included CIIE (IIMA Ventures), Foundation Botnar, 9 Unicorns, and Venture Catalysts.

The company plans to use the funds to “extend its reach across multiple states and cities in India through a 200-center network,” it said in a statement. It currently has 30 centres in Maharashtra and serves approximately 2,000 families.

Founded in 2021, Butterfly Learnings had raised $2 million in its 2022 seed funding round from Insitor Partners, 9 Unicorns, Venture Catalysts, Fondation Botnar, UTIL Stiftung, Enzia Ventures, and CIIE.CO.

The Mumbai-based company currently operates as a comprehensive phygital platform and offers tailored support for children and families facing challenges related to neurodiversity. It employs over 250 in-house trained therapists, with operations extending to urban areas such as Pune, Nagpur, and Nasik.

“The infusion of funds will fuel Butterfly Learnings' expansion efforts as it aims to scale its technology-enabled therapy programs to equip neuro-diverse children to integrate with society and manage their lives better,” the company said.

Sonam Kothari, cofounder and CEO, Butterfly Learnings, said that the funding infusion will propel the company’s mission forward and enable expedited delivery of its solutions.

“With our distinctive blend of technology enabled therapy delivery and focus on clinical excellence, we remain dedicated to ensuring that every child receives the support they need to thrive and grow,” Kothari said.

The QABA and BHCOE-accredited platform provides individualised therapy regimens based on applied behavior analysis (ABA), consultations with pediatric neurologists or developmental paediatricians, occupational therapy, speech therapy, oral placement therapy, and sensory integration.

Karuna Jain, partner at Enzia Ventures, said, “With this network, Butterfly will provide therapy to children across socio-economic strata but more importantly, provide access to outcomes-linked, personalized therapy to each child. Personalization of therapy and measurement of therapy outcomes is a global need. In India, this need is more pronounced with most parents only having access to speech and occupational therapists, and having no expectation setting or outcome measurement. We are already seeing strong demand across centers and only expect this to pick up more as diagnosis of developmental disorders and quality appreciation for therapy goes up.”

Nicholas Lazos, cofounder and CIO at Insitor Impact Asia Fund II, noted that in India, nearly 3 million children have autism and one in eight (aged between 2–9) experiences at least one neurodevelopmental disorder.

“Unfortunately, the small number of standalone clinics currently available to parents lack a rigorous scientific approach to therapy provision," Lazos said, adding that Butterfly Learnings' founders leveraged their extensive clinical and technological expertise to offer an evidence-based, technology-enabled therapy solution for children."