Rebalance Startup: KinderPass, Digital Behavioural Health Platform for Children, raises $500K in pre-seed
1 in 5 children has a behavioral health issue, globally.
The incidence rate of developmental differences, delays, and disabilities in children is growing at an alarming rate.
Whether it is Dyslexia, ADHD, Autism, speech delays, or issues such as anxiety, one in five children needs help. India ranks #1 on the list of kids with developmental disabilities and years lived with disabilities.* The lack of social interaction and proper stimulation during Covid-19 has only accelerated developmental gaps.
90% of the brain develops during the first 5 years but early screening is not the norm and lacks basic healthcare infrastructure/support.
Most developmental delays go undetected or unaddressed before the age of 5 and, later, surface as “learning difficulties” or “behaviour problems” at school. A lot of how we behave, write, speak and socialize as adults depend on our early physiological and neuro-developmental growth.
Parents are not aware of how critical early intervention can be.
Pediatricians frequently face parental concerns regarding development and/or behavior. Some of these issues may be transient and easily rectifiable but a small but significant proportion may actually be early indicators of neurodevelopmental disorders.
Additionally, a shortage of developmental pediatricians due to the lack of exposure and training in formal developmental screening and assessment in the existing post-graduate pediatric curriculum in India — makes the process harder for parents.
Co-founded by Sumedha Khoche and Shireen Sultana, KinderPass is transforming pediatric behavioral health on a mission to help parents understand, track and support their child’s development.
We’re thrilled to announce that KinderPass from Rebalance Cohort 03 has raised $500K in pre-seed funding from Goodwater Capital, Momentum VC, Rebalance Angel Community, Better Capital, and angels from Supermorpheus.
“Developmental screening and early intervention are not the norms and most developmental delays go undetected or unaddressed during early years. If and when the issue is detected, parents face (1) poor quality of care (2) fragmented therapy services at different centers (3) high costs, leading to poor compliance and poor outcomes. Of course, this doesn’t even account for the level of stress and logistical burden of coordinating the care, maintaining records, and tracking the child’s progress. We want to change this”, said Sumedha Khoche and Shireen Sultana, Co-founders of KinderPass.
Kinderpass enables early assessment of development delays, personalized treatment, matching with the right therapist, and high-quality integrative care.
Khang Tran, Partner, and VP of Engineering, Goodwater Capital commented on the raise, “Sumedha and Shireen are driven and passionate founders who I think will be unstoppable. I’m looking forward to teaming up with them to enrich the lives of so many children.”
Launched in early 2020, the app has crossed 1.2M downloads and has enabled thousands of assessments and live sessions in 10 different languages. With a network of 50+ child experts (speech therapists, teachers, occupational therapists, psychologists, behavior therapists, etc.), KinderPass has helped families across 75+ cities — from Delhi to Dubai, Bengaluru to Balrampur.
“KinderPass is a unique, mission-driven company. I really admire how they’re solving the big problem of developmental monitoring & intervention access for millions of parents globally with their distribution-first approach”, said Ankur Shrivastava of Momentum Capital.
KinderPass is India’s first multilingual app that is bridging this healthcare gap and is currently accessible in Hindi and English with 6+ languages launching soon.
Aishwarya Malhi and Vikas Kumar, co-founders of Rebalance and Rebalance Angel Community, added, “ We met Sumedha and Shireen at a very pivotal moment for KinderPass and we couldn’t be happier to partner with them on their journey to build Asia’s biggest pediatric behavioral health company.”
With over 1500 skill-building modules and 50+ assessments, they’re offering a tech-enabled detection and care model that is both affordable, accessible, and empowers parents with the power of 7 developmental experts in their pocket.
KinderPass offers a personalized program that entails interactive 1x1 sessions to teach kids and parents, activities and techniques they can use in real-life situations; weekly practice activities, games, and worksheets.
“KinderPass is an important company. Having had a close view of developmental challenges in close family & friends, I was thrilled to find a team of passionate founders who want to help parents get the right kind of help at the right time so their children can overcome their disabilities and thrive”, said Vaibhav Domkundwar of Better Capital, an early backer of health tech innovators like Cradlewise, Fittr, Mojocare & others.
Kinderpass has also received support from T-hub, WE-hub, Jio BuildforBharat, and Action for India on this mission.
The team will use the funds towards launching video-based multilingual detection modules, building a proprietary parent education platform, expanding its clinician network, and partnering with pre-schools and schools to reach more families.
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We bring together seasoned and aspiring angel investors who understand the importance of backing diverse founding teams, early on.
Our goal is to build: Early, guided access for first-time investors with a focus on including more women, LGBTQIA2S+ people, disabled people, and minorities at large who have the expertise, experience, and capital to invest.
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*(source: The Lancet, 2018).
