Care delivery · Women’s health

Almond ObGyn

A membership OB-GYN practice built to be, in its own words, “like One Medical but for women’s health,” combining a single Los Angeles clinic with telehealth. It raised a $7 million seed round in 2022 and closed the clinic in March 2026.

A membership card instead of a waiting room

Almond opened its first clinic on Melrose Avenue in Los Angeles in August 2022, fresh out of Y Combinator’s summer batch. The pitch was simple: pay an annual membership, get faster access to an OB-GYN, and use telehealth for anything that did not require a physical exam. The company said it hit a $90,000 monthly revenue run rate and was booking three weeks out before the clinic even opened its doors, according to its Y Combinator launch post.

The founders built the office themselves. In a 2024 podcast interview, Tara Raffi described a 1,000 square foot build out for about $75,000, with concrete floors, natural wood and fruit stickers at the front desk, a deliberate break from what she called the fluorescent, paper gown feel of a typical ObGyn office.

The problem it targeted

Almond’s materials cited a 2020 Commonwealth Fund report that found 75% of women in the United States are dissatisfied with their OB-GYN care, the second largest medical specialty by spend after primary care. Raffi told Forbes that OB-GYN had “zero companies delivering modern tech-enabled care,” even as venture money poured into primary care look alikes like One Medical.

The company’s answer was to take administrative and low-complexity work off physicians and hire a wider mix of care roles, including nurse midwives and physician assistants, alongside MDs. It later layered in a root cause, “functional” framing of care, and in 2024 launched a flat fee, ten session group prenatal care program and a lab-testing product called Baseline.

Two founders, a personal complaint

Tara Raffi was a McKinsey consultant who had built the firm’s internal tech incubator before starting Almond. She has said the idea traces to a frustrating search for an OB-GYN in the Bay Area for a chronic issue, and a UTI she could not get treated while working long hours inside a hospital system as a consultant. Her co-founder, Carly Allen, spent her career in CAA’s marketing division running global campaigns for brands including Coca-Cola and Nike; her late father had been an OB-GYN.

Raising money took time. Raffi told Authority Magazine it took “over 180 investor pitches” before the company closed a round, after an initial attempt at a larger raise fell short and the founders bridged with a smaller friends and family round first. The seed eventually closed with Tony Conrad of True Ventures and Brit Morin of Offline Ventures as named investors, alongside YC group partner Surbhi Sarna and advisors including Carbon Health founder Caesar Djavaherian and Modern Animal founder Steve Eidelman, per the same interview.

Growth, then a fast shutdown

By August 2024, Forbes was calling Almond “the first full-service, tech-enabled OB-GYN in the country,” and Inc. magazine named Raffi and Allen to its 2024 Female Founders 250 list. The following month, the Los Angeles Business Journal covered Almond’s launch of a $2,500 flat fee group pregnancy care program, describing the company as having “$7 million in venture funding, though it declined to name the funders.” As late as January 2025, Raffi was describing a new diagnostic testing product in a founder interview, with no public sign of trouble.

Then, in early 2026, Almond posted a letter on its website announcing the clinic would close. “The financial realities of today’s healthcare and insurance systems have made it increasingly challenging to practice medicine in a way that aligns with our values and with the level of care we believe women deserve,” the letter said. The last day for most appointments was set for March 20, 2026, with portal access and prescription support continuing through March 29. Almond arranged for patients to transition to Tia Health, and listed several of its own clinicians’ next destinations, including Cedars-Sinai, Maven Clinic and a new practice its medical director planned to open in April 2026.

What is proven, and what is still claimed

Read plainly: the underlying facts of Almond’s business, one clinic, one membership model, one Form D, are on the record. What is not on the record, or not consistent across the record, is the founding date and exactly who backed the company, since press accounts named investors that the company itself later declined to confirm. There is also no independent account of why the business closed beyond the company’s own letter.

What to watch

• Where Almond’s clinicians land. The closure letter names several, including a medical director planning her own practice starting April 2026.
• Whether any independent reporting on the shutdown, or on what happened to the roughly $7.2M raised, appears after this closure.
• Whether an amended or later Form D ever surfaces for Almond Life, Inc.; none has as of September 2026.

In their words

Almond ObGyn funding profile on HVCFHealthcare Venture Capital Fund

Related companies

• Modern Fertility: Also in Consumer Health and Wellness. A finger prick hormone panel sold to women who were not trying to conceive
• Kips Health: Also in Consumer Health and Wellness. A Y Combinator backed startup that automated remote therapeutic monitoring billing for physical therapy clinics, after starting out as a marketplace for booking physical
• Instalab: Also in Consumer Health and Wellness. A New York concierge service that lets people order their own blood work, imaging and screenings, with a network of physicians authorizing the orders behind the scenes
• Liv Labs: Also in Consumer Health and Wellness. A Y Combinator company that spent $2.5 million in federal grants on a prescription-free treatment for urinary leakage, closed its pivotal trial after seven patients, and

Sources

1. Public recordForm D, Almond Life, Inc., CIK 0001955200SEC EDGAR · filed Nov 23, 2022
2. IndependentAlmond launches full-service OB-GYN care to rebuild patient experienceTechCrunch, Andrew Mendez · Nov 22, 2022
3. IndependentY-Combinator Alum Almond Raises $7M to Pursue Its Vision of Holistic OB/GYN CareFemtech Insider · Nov 28, 2022
4. IndependentMeet Almond. The First Full-Service, Tech-Enabled OB-GYN In The CountryForbes, Cheryl Robinson · Aug 15, 2024
5. IndependentOBGYN Startup Gets Into Group Pregnancy CareLos Angeles Business Journal, Howard Fine · Sep 30, 2024
6. InterviewFemale Disruptors: Tara Raffi of Almond ObGyn On The Three Things You Need To Shake Up Your IndustryAuthority Magazine (Medium) · Jan 8, 2025
7. InterviewBreaking Barriers in Women’s Healthcare with Almond ObGynSURROUND, The Design Board podcast · Nov 20, 2024
8. IndependentTara Raffi, Founder and CEO of Almond ObGyn, profileYesPress · accessed Sep 2026
9. IndependentAlmond company profileBoring Business Nerd · Nov 22, 2022
10. IndependentAlmond ObGyn, Los Angeles, listing marked permanently closedYelp · accessed 2026
11. IndependentAlmond ObGyn, 8274 Melrose Ave, listing marked permanently closedMapQuest · accessed 2026
12. IndependentAlmond organization profileCrunchbase · archived Jan 2023
13. Public recordNPI Registry search for organizational records matching “Almond”CMS NPPES · accessed Sep 2026
14. CompanyAlmond: We make it easy to get great ObGyn care, launch postY Combinator · Aug 2022
15. CompanyAlmond ObGyn closure letter and FAQalmondobgyn.com · early 2026
16. CompanyOur missionalmondobgyn.com · accessed 2026
17. CompanyWho We Arealmondobgyn.com · archived Dec 2023