Thrive Therapies, a tech-enabled pediatric healthcare company, announced US$7.7 million in funding led by LiveOak Ventures with participation from Activate Venture Partners and the Charter School Growth Fund. The company delivers therapy, evaluations, and behavioral health care to students with disabilities in more than 200 schools and districts across six states. The new capital will support expansion into new markets, growth of its clinical teams, and advancement of its Thrive Clinical intelligence platform.
Funding and Expansion Plans
Thrive currently serves public school districts in Florida, North Carolina, Ohio, Tennessee, Texas, and Washington under multi-year contracts. The company intends to enter additional markets while strengthening its clinical workforce and advancing its data platform. Investors described the round as a signal of confidence in an outcomes-first model that combines care delivery, Medicaid revenue cycle management, and real-time reporting.
Addressing a National Therapist Shortage
School districts across the country face shortages of speech-language pathologists, occupational and physical therapists, school psychologists, and behavioral health clinicians. More than 8 million children with disabilities need federally required healthcare services, but Medicaid billing can be time-consuming and often insurmountable for districts. Thrive places its own clinicians inside schools, working face-to-face with students, teachers, and families to deliver care directly.
Real-Time Outcomes and Medicaid Billing
Many systems measure therapeutic effectiveness only once a year, which can leave a child waiting up to a year for adjustments. Thrive Clinical has documented more than 18,000 therapy sessions to date and closes this gap with real-time reporting. The same record that documents a child's progress also supports district Medicaid claims, so schools stop leaving money unclaimed and clinicians reduce evening paperwork.
Early Student Results
Early outcomes across Thrive's school systems show that more than 85% of students met their annual IEP goals. Additionally, 46% of students met their goals and no longer required services, compared with a national average near 8%. This important progress returns clinician capacity to students who need the most support, according to the company.
Founder Experience and Vision
Founder and CEO Dr. Kristin McGraner previously founded STEM Preparatory Academy and directed federally funded research teams at Vanderbilt's Peabody College. She said the persistent challenge was that nobody could tell precisely what a child needed early enough to matter. Thrive was built to fix that problem by providing measurable, session-level insight into every student's progress.
Investor Perspective
Krishna Srinivasan, founding partner at LiveOak Ventures, said Dr. McGraner and her team bring a rare combination of education and clinical leadership with proprietary technology. He noted that Thrive has already shown strong traction across multiple regions. The investment points to a fundamental change in how special education services are delivered, measured, and paid for across the United States.
The funding positions Thrive Therapies to expand its school-based care model at a time when districts face persistent workforce shortages and rising demand for disability services. Its integrated approach to care delivery, outcomes measurement, and Medicaid billing could help schools recover unclaimed funds while improving student progress. The company's early results suggest that more timely, data-informed therapy can reduce long-term service needs and strengthen support for children with disabilities.