To advance maternal and pediatric care, Cayaba Care has announced new funding.
According to a press release sent to AfroTech, the Black-owned health startup has raised $12 million in a Series A funding round. The funding was led by Seae Ventures and Kapor Capital. Wellington Partners, Citi Impact Fund, and Rhia Ventures also participated in the round. To date, the company has raised $15 million with return investments from 100 percent of its institutional seed round funders including Digitalis Ventures, SteelSky Ventures, and Flare Capital.
Statement From CEO and Co-founder of Cayaba Care Dr. Olan Soremekun
“Maternal care is unique in that progress and impact must be tracked over a relatively long period of time [at absolute minimum, nine months! But truly, it has an effect for years and decades to come, both for mom and baby]. Venture capital funding at this scale allows us to innovate and invest in our approach to serving the community with a holistic, prescriptive, and local-first care model that we believe can fundamentally change the way maternity care is delivered in this country,” Dr. Soremekun wrote to AfroTech in an e-mail interview.
How The New Funding Will Advance Maternal Care
Cayaba Care has helped over 10,000 women living in the U.S., heavily impacted by severe maternal morbidity by providing a navigator and access to diverse nurse practitioners, OBGYNs, lactation consultants, social workers, and behavioral health specialists.
What’s more, patients under their care are three times more likely to visit an obstetrician, creating a 35 percent reduction in emergency room visits.
The funding will bolster the health startup’s efforts by providing high-quality and holistic maternity care and tools to help those in underserved communities. In addition, hiring experts from various fields of expertise including medical, behavioral health, design, data, technology, social work, operations, customer service, and community outreach, will be pivotal to building across industries. Cayaba Care also plans to establish a diverse Series A Board composed of 50 percent women as well as 50 percent of Black individuals.
“In all areas of healthcare, having the right people at the table directly impacts the quality of care an individual receives, but this is especially true when we are talking about healthcare for women and for underserved communities. Currently, less than 4% of healthcare service companies are Black-owned or led, while women only make up 5% of all digital health funding. We believe that to truly move the needle and have a more equitable healthcare offering as a nation, we must address the root of the problem and that means establishing leadership that looks and thinks like the women and communities we serve,” Dr. Olan Soremekun wrote to AfroTech.
