Care delivery · Maternal and metabolic health
Malama Health
A Medicaid-first maternal care company that puts doulas on its own payroll, wraps them in a gestational diabetes app, and bills health plans for it. It has payer contracts, a federal grant and a $9.2 million seed round. The evidence behind its headline clinical number is thinner than the number sounds.
The spreadsheet
Mika Eddy was a director of clinical product innovation at UnitedHealthcare when she got pregnant, developed gestational diabetes, and delivered during the pandemic. She kept the bill. Forbes reported in June 2026 that the pregnancy came to just over $100,000 billed and $20,000 out of pocket, and that her third, at Kaiser, cost $150.
She also kept the paper log. “I was handed a piece of paper and told to log my blood glucose levels and everything I ate four times a day, and to maybe stop eating rice,” she told Stanford’s Biodesign center in 2023. She grew up in Japan. The rice part landed.
Two artifacts, one insight: a person who could read every line of a claim still could not make the system show up between appointments.
The gap it is aimed at
Medicaid pays for more than 40 percent of US births. Care around those births is episodic: roughly eight prenatal visits, then one follow-up at six weeks. Most pregnancy-related deaths happen after delivery, inside the window that visit is meant to cover, and Forbes reported that only about 30 percent of Medicaid-insured women attend it.
Gestational diabetes sits in that gap. The NIH abstract for Malama’s own grant notes that roughly 70 percent of women diagnosed with it later develop type 2 diabetes, at a cost of up to $1.6 billion a year, with a fourfold higher risk among Black individuals and threefold among Hispanic and South or Southeast Asian individuals.
Doulas are the policy answer that arrived first. Acumen America counted 31 states reimbursing doula services through Medicaid in March 2026, up from two in 2018. Coverage is not supply. Someone still has to recruit, train, credential and bill for the workforce.
Four people from Stanford
Eddy returned to Stanford in 2021 as a Sloan Fellow and built the first product in a Biodesign for Digital Health course. Malama is a Hawaiian word meaning to nurture, take care of, preserve and protect.
She recruited Orlando Li, an engineer from Airbnb, as chief technology officer; he appears on the SEC filing as Zongsheng Li. Daniela Bahamon, founder of the design company Maison Alma, took the creative side. Shalmali Bane, then a Stanford PhD candidate in perinatal epidemiology, took research.
The company went through Y Combinator’s Summer 2022 batch and the first class of Alpine Investors’ social ventures fellowship. Priyanka Wali, a double board certified physician, is medical director of Malama Medical Group, the physician-owned entity carrying the clinical side.
From app to payroll
The first product was a logging app. Patients paired a Bluetooth glucometer, photographed meals, and the software learned which foods moved their readings. A pilot ran at Santa Clara Valley Medical Center. Tufts Medical Center began a randomized study in May 2023.
Then the company changed shape. Instead of selling software to clinics it began hiring doulas as employees, calling them Doula-Care Navigators, and contracting with Medicaid managed care plans directly. Navigators attend births, run home visits, and stay through the twelve months after delivery, escalating to a clinician when a reading crosses a line.
Colorado came in November 2025. The seed round closed in February 2026 and was announced in March. By September 2026 the company was posting navigator roles in Honolulu, Detroit and New York, and its California program listing on findhelp.org had been reviewed on September 17.
What is proven, and what is still claimed
| Evidence | What the record shows | Source type |
|---|---|---|
| NIH SBIR Fast Track | R44MD021154 at NIMHD, PI Mika Eddy, to Malama Health, Inc. Project period Sep 17, 2025 to Mar 31, 2028. Obligations on record: $313,955 in FY2025 and $1,136,976 in FY2026, or $1,450,931 to date. | Public record |
| Size of that grant | The March 2026 release calls it a $2.3 million grant. The company’s own press index and Forbes call it $2.4 million. NIH records $1,450,931 obligated so far, with the award running to 2028. | Differs from the record |
| Tufts randomized study | NCT05597943, sponsored by Tufts Medical Center, not Malama. Randomized, open label, 30 participants enrolled. Ran May 2023 to Feb 2025. No results posted as of Sep 22, 2026. The registered text calls it a pilot study. | Public record |
| The 40 percent claim | The company, Acumen America and several trade outlets describe a Tufts trial showing women who used Malama were about 40 percent less likely to develop postpartum diabetes. It rests on the 30-patient pilot above, which has no posted results. | Claim outruns the record |
| Peer-reviewed papers | None found in PubMed for the company or for the Tufts study as of Sep 22, 2026. | Not found |
| Patient-reported outcomes | March 2026: 2,500-plus women, 38 percent fewer preterm births, 9 percent fewer C-sections, 6 percent fewer NICU admissions. June 2026: 2,300-plus women, 45 percent, 13 percent and 19 percent. Two company datasets three months apart that agree on nothing. | Company figures disagree |
| Payer contracts | In-network with Medicaid managed care plans in California, Texas and Colorado. The YC profile also lists Aetna, UnitedHealthcare, Anthem and Kaiser. No plan named in any filing or plan-side announcement. | Company-stated |
| State program listing | findhelp.org carries a claimed Malama program for California Medicaid managed care members, free to patients, last reviewed Sep 17, 2026. Third-party confirmation the operation is live. | Public record |
| FDA and NSF | No FDA 510(k) or PMA records, as expected. No NSF awards: the 25 records a keyword sweep returned all belong to universities and unrelated companies. | Public record |
Read plainly: the operating business is real and corroborated from outside. Federal peer reviewers funded the science and a state benefits directory lists the program. The weak seam is the clinical claim doing the heaviest lifting in the press. A 30-patient open-label pilot that ended in early 2025, with no posted results and no paper, is described in market-facing language as a trial that proved a 40 percent reduction. Both things can be true: the pilot may point the right way, and the sentence built on it carries more weight than it can hold. The NIH award funds the study that would settle it.
What to watch
- Results or a publication from NCT05597943, which completed in February 2025.
- The larger trial the NIH award funds, and whether it is registered.
- A named health plan. Every payer relationship so far is company-stated.
- One consistent outcomes dataset instead of two versions three months apart.
In their words
“I was handed a piece of paper and told to log my blood glucose levels and everything I ate four times a day, and to maybe stop eating rice.”
Mika Eddy, co-founder and CEO, Stanford Biodesign, 2023 · Independent
“It’s the time when our bodies are both vulnerable yet sending health signals which may serve as clues for better health in the long-term.”
Mika Eddy on pregnancy, Alpine Investors interview, 2025 · Interview
“Women in this country are trying to navigate a sick care system that was never designed for them. Most get a handful of prenatal appointments and one postpartum visit, and then they’re on their own.”
Mika Eddy, March 2026 funding release · Company release
“As a maternal health and disparities researcher, it is glaringly obvious how overlooked pregnancy is in health research.”
Shalmali Bane, chief research officer, Stanford Biodesign, 2023 · Independent
“Malama’s mission is to make whole-person care the standard for every mom and baby.”
Priyanka Wali, medical director, Malama Medical Group, November 2025 · Company release
“Malama Health has earned that trust in communities that have been failed by the healthcare system for generations, and the outcomes data shows what’s possible when you build care around women rather than around appointments.”
Veenu Aulakh, director, Acumen America, March 2026 · Investor, company release
“Mika is one of the rare founders who understands both the realities and the gaps in our healthcare system, especially for those insured by Medicaid.”
Vivek Murthy, former US Surgeon General, Wisdom Ventures, to Forbes, 2026 · Independent
“Medicaid is the largest payer of maternity care in the U.S., and it’s still failing the women who need it most.”
Margaret Coblentz, general partner, Capital F, to Forbes, 2026 · Independent
Related companies
Sources
- Public recordForm D, Malama Health, Inc., CIK 0002113045
- Public recordNIH RePORTER 1R44MD021154-01
- Public recordNIH RePORTER 4R44MD021154-02
- Public recordClinicalTrials.gov NCT05597943
- Public recordPubMed searches, company and Tufts investigators
- Public recordDoula-Led Care Navigation program listing
- IndependentDoula-Led Care Is The Future Of Maternal Health
- IndependentMalama Health Secures $9.2M to Expand Maternal Health Platform
- IndependentYC graduate raises millions for app-based doula care
- IndependentManaging diabetes in pregnancy with a digital app
- InvestorWhy we invested in Malama
- InterviewAlpine Social Ventures Fellow Mika Eddy
- CompanySeed round announcement
- CompanyFounder letter on the seed round
- CompanyColorado launch release
- CompanyWebsite, provider and plans pages
Profile researched and written by Healthcare Discovery. Last updated September 29, 2026.
