Healthcare startup Cognoa Inc. has raised $11.6 million to expand its digital platform that helps parents screen for developmental delays and early signs of autism.

Cognoa’s latest funding comes from its existing investor, Morningside Group, bringing the company’s total funding to date to more than $20 million. Founded in 2013, Cognoa offers several services that are aimed at evaluating the risk of developmental delay in children, which can either provide peace of mind for parents worried about their children’s progress, or give them a head start to deal with potential challenges early.

Cognoa’s services include a free web-based evaluation that calculates the likelihood that a child is experiencing developmental difficulties. After completing the assessment, users can submit a question to Cognoa’s health experts, and the company says the question will be answered within three days. Cognoa also allows parents to submit short video recordings of their children playing or interacting with others, and the videos are then reviewed by experts, who provide detailed feedback on their rate of development.

According to Cognoa Chief Executive Brent Vaughan, the company’s new funding will enable it to conduct more studies on the accuracy of its assessments and form partnerships with employers.

“Our goal is to improve families’ lives while supporting clinicians by enabling earlier diagnosis and improved outcomes for children,” Vaughan said in a statement. “Cognoa’s next phase of growth will involve not only engaging in additional clinical validation and pursuing FDA approvals, but also working with employers and health plans to offer our clinically validated assessment and child development support platform to employers to support their parents in the workplace.”

In addition to expert evaluations, Cognoa also takes advantage of machine learning for its assessments. According to the company, machine learning will allow its platform to become better and better at identifying autism, attention deficit disorder and other developmental and behavioral disorders.

“The trend of using [patient reported outcomes] and machine learning to provide diagnoses has grown exponentially in the healthcare field, and Cognoa is a leader in the area of assessments for developmental and behavioral conditions,”  said Isaac Cheng of Morningside.

Cheng noted that Morningside is particularly interested in supporting Food and Drug Administration approval for machine learning-based health assessments, something that would likely be welcomed by companies such IBM Corp., whose Watson Health platform is being used by health professionals to conduct new medical research using machine learning. Other major tech companies are also working on combining machine learning with healthcare, including Microsoft Corp., which intends to “solve” cancer using machine learning.

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