Digital health & telemedicine · Women’s mental health
LunaJoy Health
A telehealth company built by two physicians to close the gap between a positive mental health screening and actual treatment for women. It runs on insurance contracts and a Medicaid partnership rather than FDA clearances or trials.
A resident treating pregnant patients, then becoming one
Sipra Laddha was training as a reproductive psychiatrist at Emory when she became pregnant with high-risk twins. She could describe her patients’ cervical length and blood flow in detail, she later said, but nobody was checking her own mental health. Her twins arrived at 36 weeks. The pregnancy went well enough, but the first year postpartum was the hardest of her life.
“I was a resident and still had a hard time finding resources specific to mental health around pregnancy and postpartum,” she told Lucet, a behavioral health network, in a 2025 interview. “I started wondering: if I struggled so much, how do most women do it?”
She had a colleague with a similar question. Shama Rathi, a child and adolescent psychiatrist and Laddha’s sister in law, joined her, and in October 2021 the two launched LunaJoy.
The gap it is aimed at
Obstetric screening for depression and anxiety has become routine, but a positive screen does not automatically lead to care. Laddha told Lucet that around 85 percent of women get no mental health treatment at all during pregnancy or the postpartum period, even after screening improved. “When someone screens positive for mental health symptoms, there often isn’t a follow-up action,” she said. “It just sits there as information in an electronic medical record.”
The Policy Center for Maternal Mental Health found that 70 percent of U.S. counties lack sufficient mental health resources for new mothers, per the Lucet interview, and CDC data cited by Georgia’s CareSource put mental health conditions, including suicide and overdose, behind 23 percent of preventable maternal deaths as of 2022. LunaJoy’s pitch is a curated, remote clinical workforce plus tech-enabled triage, no new drug or device required.
Building the workforce and the payer list
LunaJoy joined Y Combinator’s Winter 2022 batch. By early 2023 it said it had insurance contracts with Cigna, Aetna, Humana and Magellan, was licensed in 17 states, and had served more than 1,000 clients through a workforce of 15 staff and 25 clinicians, based out of Tampa and Atlanta. It closed a $2.4 million seed round that January from FoundersX Fund, Goodwater Capital, Magic Fund, VentureSouq, Nurture Ventures, NorthSouth Ventures and healthcare angels, including Emmeline Ventures.
“People who understood the problem deeply got it within 20 minutes, but [there were] people who still really think of women’s health as niche and not a market opportunity,” Laddha told Axios at the time, according to Femtech Insider’s reporting on the round.
A Medicaid contract, a platform, and a raise that skipped the Series A label
In March 2024, LunaJoy announced a partnership with CareSource, a managed care plan covering more than 450,000 Georgians, to screen and treat high-risk Medicaid mothers in the state. The next month it launched LunaCare, a behavioral health program that uses what the company calls a proprietary AI-driven scoring system to route flagged patients into the right level of care inside their existing health system or payer relationship, and disclosed $4.2 million in new funding from the same investors as the seed, plus Y Combinator.
Co-founder Shama Rathi told Endpoints News that LunaJoy had already hit the revenue metrics it needed for a formal Series A and chose to skip the process. “Instead of having to spend six months raising, this came together within two to three weeks, and we were just quickly able to go back to building and being able to capitalize on the growth,” she said. By the company’s own count, that put total funding at $6.6 million, with a footprint of more than a dozen states and plans to add eight more within four to six months.
What is proven, and what is still claimed
| Evidence | What the record shows | Source type |
|---|---|---|
| Founding date | Co-founder Sipra Laddha places the launch in October 2021 in a 2025 interview, and a 2026 independent review states 2021. Y Combinator’s own company page lists “Founded: 2022,” matching its Winter 2022 batch. | Conflict |
| Headquarters | Y Combinator lists Atlanta, GA. A January 2023 profile described the company as having “roots in Tampa and Atlanta,” and an April 2024 wire item called it “St. Petersburg, Florida-based.” | Conflict |
| Insurance contracts | 2023: Cigna, Aetna, Humana, Magellan. 2024: Cigna, Aetna, Blue Cross Blue Shield, regional plans, Medicaid and Medicare plans. A January 2026 review lists a longer set including Ambetter, AmeriHealth, Optum, UnitedHealthcare, Wellcare and Molina. | Independent, company-sourced |
| State licensure | Company said 17 states in January 2023. Fierce Healthcare reported “more than a dozen states” in April 2024, with plans to add eight more. A January 2026 review counts 12 states plus D.C., with two inconsistent state lists on the same page. | Conflict |
| Georgia Medicaid partnership | CareSource, covering more than 450,000 Georgians, announced a March 2024 partnership with LunaJoy to screen and treat high-risk Medicaid mothers, confirmed by a CareSource executive on the record. | Independent, partner-confirmed |
| Clinician network size | Y Combinator lists a team size of 6. A January 2023 article put the workforce at 15 staff and 25 clinicians. The company’s own careers page states “over 50 providers” as of this profile. | Company-stated |
| Total funding | $2.4 million seed (Jan 2023) plus $4.2 million (Apr 2024), totaling $6.6 million by the company’s own count. No SEC Form D filing has been found under LunaJoy’s name. | No public filing found |
| Federal grants, FDA, trials, PubMed | None found for LunaJoy Health in NSF, NIH, FDA, ClinicalTrials.gov, or PubMed records reviewed for this profile. | Not found |
Read plainly, LunaJoy has a coherent origin story, two on-record physician founders, a named Medicaid partner, and a consistent list of backers across two rounds that add up cleanly. What does not hold together is the basic descriptive detail: when the company was founded, where it is headquartered, and how many states it serves have each been reported differently, sometimes within the same year.
What to watch
- Whether a Form D or any SEC filing appears under LunaJoy’s name, since its backers include venture funds that typically file one within 15 days of a first sale.
- A reconciled state count, given the gap between the 17 states reported in 2023 and the roughly 12 states plus D.C. reported in 2026.
- Whether the CareSource model gets replicated with other Medicaid plans in other states.
- An updated funding total beyond the $6.6 million reported as of April 2024.
In their words
“I was a resident and still had a hard time finding resources specific to mental health around pregnancy and postpartum. I started wondering: if I struggled so much, how do most women do it?”
Sipra Laddha, MD, co-founder and CEO, 2025 interview · Interview
“Taking a pregnant or postpartum woman who’s already struggling with depression and anxiety and potentially struggling with a new infant, or multiple new infants, and leaving them to navigate our fragmented mental health system alone.”
Sipra Laddha, MD, co-founder and CEO, 2025 interview · Interview
“People who understood the problem deeply got it within 20 minutes, but [there were] people who still really think of women’s health as niche and not a market opportunity.”
Sipra Laddha, MD, co-founder and CEO, to Axios, quoted by Femtech Insider, Jan 2023 · Independent
“We come from these cultural dynamics where you don’t talk about mental health, you don’t say the words out loud and ask for what you need.”
Naseem Sayani, co-founder and managing director, Emmeline Ventures, to Axios, quoted by Femtech Insider, Jan 2023 · Investor
“They’re already seeing their doctors, they’re already working with their payers, if they have insurance.”
Sipra Laddha, MD, co-founder and CEO, to Fierce Healthcare, Apr 2024 · Interview
“Instead of having to spend six months raising, this came together within two to three weeks, and we were just quickly able to go back to building and being able to capitalize on the growth.”
Shama Rathi, MD, co-founder, to Endpoints News, Apr 2024 · Interview
“We have extensive insurance coverage, and we’ve had that since we opened our doors.”
Shama Rathi, MD, co-founder, to Endpoints News, Apr 2024 · Interview
“We are honored to partner with LunaJoy Health to bring needed mental health support to women throughout their pregnancy journey and beyond.”
Seema Csukas, MD, vice president and chief medical officer, CareSource Georgia, Mar 2024 · Partner
Related companies
Sources
- IndependentShaping the Future of Maternal Mental Health: A Q&A with LunaJoy
- IndependentLunaJoy nabs $4.2M to roll out integrated maternal mental health program with partners
- IndependentLunaJoy Health Adds $4.2M in Funding; Launches ‘LunaCare’ for Women’s Mental Health
- IndependentLunaJoy Health Secures $4.2M In Funding
- IndependentLunaJoy Raises $2.4M in Seed Funding for Its Virtual Clinic Focused on Women’s Mental Health
- IndependentArmed with $2.4M seed funding, the physicians behind LunaJoy are bringing a mental health counseling platform to more women
- IndependentCareSource and LunaJoy Health Partner to Increase Access to Maternal Mental Health Care
- IndependentLunaJoy Review 2026: Pros & Cons, Cost, & My Experience
- IndependentMeet 15 Startups from Y Combinator’s W22 Batch We’re Watching Closely Right Now
- CompanyLunaJoy Health company page
- CompanyLunaJoy Launches LunaCare to Set a New Standard for Maternal Mental Healthcare, repost of Fierce Healthcare and Endpoints News reporting
- CompanyWomen’s Therapy and Psychiatry in Atlanta
- CompanyJoin our clinical team
Profile researched and written by Healthcare Discovery. Last updated September 29, 2026.
