Flourish Care, a Boston-based maternal healthcare platform offering in-person and virtual doula support, has raised $5.7 million in seed funding to expand its doula network nationwide, as first reported by MedCity News.
The round was led by Zeal Capital Partners with participation from Create Health Ventures, Collide Capital, Rogue Women’s Fund, Symphonic Capital, Slater Technology Fund, and Catalytic Impact Foundation.
Flourish Care matches patients with doulas based on cultural preferences, language, and location, providing support before, during, and after pregnancy – including birth plan advocacy, comfort and pain management, feeding support, sleep guidance, and childbirth education. The company currently has doulas in 18 states and recently went in network with UnitedHealthcare. It works primarily with Medicaid but is also in network with several commercial plans.
“The policy and payer landscape has finally caught up to what families have always needed,” said Nasir Qadree, founder and managing partner of Zeal Capital Partners. “Flourish Care is building the scalable model that will fundamentally integrate doula care into clinical workflows, insurance networks, and women’s lives.”
Founder and CEO Melissa Bowley launched Flourish Care in 2020 after receiving doula support during her own pregnancies. “After I was doing all of this research, I saw the disparities and the maternal healthcare crisis that our country was in,” she told MedCity News. “I left med devices after having a doula with both of my kids – who was absolutely amazing and changed the whole course of my birth and postpartum care – and ultimately decided to commit to reducing the gaps in maternal healthcare through getting everybody access to doula care.”
The funding will support nationwide expansion in the U.S. over the next couple of years and advance the company’s data platform to identify higher-risk patients and intervene earlier.
Flourish Care is the third doula-focused maternal health company to announce significant funding in recent weeks, alongside Malama Health ($9.2M) and Nadia Care ($12M) – all three serving Medicaid populations and reporting strong outcomes data around reduced preterm births, C-sections, and NICU admissions. The pattern signals sustained investor conviction that community-embedded doula care models can deliver both better outcomes and viable economics within the Medicaid system.
