Fundraising Fox
Okkanti
Techstars '25Madison, US · Founded 2022 · 5 employees on LinkedIn · 1 known investors
Find your way into Okkanti
Sign up to see every warm intro you have to Okkanti
- Paths you didn't know you had: your email and LinkedIn already hold routes to the Okkanti team. We find them for you
- 2nd- and 3rd-degree connections: the friend-of-a-friend routes that take hours to manually find through your inbox or LinkedIn
- Answers now, not in days: momentum is everything in a raise. Skip asking around whether someone knows someone
Days of research, done the moment you sign in, with every route ranked by how warm it is.
Okkanti operates a platform connecting pregnant and parenting people with vetted doulas, midwives, lactation specialists, and postpartum care providers. The marketplace also enables doctors to refer care professionals without bias and supports the sustainability of independent maternal and postpartum care workers.
Also known as Okkanti Inc
Investors · 1
How we know: the Techstars portfolio · open dataset · Top 3000 Accelerator Startups (no YC) 2026-08 · Not right? Tell us
Company profile
researched Sep 2026Okkanti operates a software platform for maternity and infant care that serves three groups: families seeking pregnancy, birth and postpartum support; independent doulas, agencies and collectives delivering that support; and physicians or health providers making referrals to community-based care. The company describes itself as "the operating system for maternity and infant care," positioning its tools as an equivalent of the EHR systems that hospitals use but tailored to how doulas and perinatal specialists work, replacing spreadsheets, text messages and consumer payment apps with a single platform for scheduling, payments and client communication.
The consumer-facing product is the Okkanti CareFinder, a search and booking site where care seekers create an account, search by specialty and zip code, and schedule providers. Listed service categories include birth doula packages, daytime and overnight postpartum care, lactation support (home and virtual visits), mental health specialists, physical therapy, hypnotherapy, trauma support, doula training, on-call sibling childcare during labor and newborn care. Families can book free initial consultations (up to two per service, with further consultations at a $50 fee), and set billing preferences to request pre-approvals for insurance, employer benefits or HSA/FSA coverage. Search spans independent providers, doula agencies and community-doula programs, and each provider's affiliated organization is identified in the listing.
On the provider side, Okkanti offers what it calls operational software for independent doulas, small agencies and collectives, covering billing and reimbursement (including Medicaid billing for doula services), HIPAA-compliance readiness and network membership it terms Community Partnerships. Providers are not employees of Okkanti; the company issues 1099s to its providers and provider organizations. Verified members complete a three-step vetting process before appearing in the CareFinder.
Founding story
The company's name is Pali for "conception," chosen to represent the spark of becoming and three forces igniting a new possibility. Okkanti states that its founder has spent more than 30 years exploring the home as a place where care is received and the possibilities of an improved healthcare system, and that the company emerged from listening to doulas and care workers and accompanying the experiences of pregnant and parenting people. The leadership team is listed as Karen Laing (CEO and co-founder), Michael Szewczyk (COO and co-founder), Ryan Curtis (CTO and technical lead) and Bea Olstad (marketing and operations).
Business model
Okkanti acts as an intermediary between families and independent perinatal care providers: care seekers book and pay for consultations and care packages through the Okkanti portal, while providers and provider organizations remain independent contractors who receive 1099s from Okkanti. Alongside the booking marketplace, the company supplies subscription-style operational software to doulas, agencies and collectives covering scheduling, payments, client communication, billing and reimbursement, with engagement beginning through a discovery call.
Revenue is associated with bookings made through the CareFinder — consultations are paid at the time of booking and multi-visit packages are loaded into the client's account — plus fees for additional consultations beyond the two free ones ($50 each), and operational software provided to doulas and doula agencies.
Traction
Okkanti states it has grown a network of Community Partners and that organizations using its tools have reduced costs and generated 54% more revenue. The CareFinder lists member providers across doula, postpartum, lactation, mental health and physical therapy specialties, and the company is included in the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation's Innovation Investment Portfolio under the QNBV (qualified new business venture) designation.
Latest developments
The company's site presents the platform as "the operating system for maternity and infant care," combining its Community Partnerships network, practice management tools for doulas and perinatal providers, and a collaboration platform intended to deliver prevention-based care models at scale.
▸Full profile — market position, technology, go-to-market, geography
Market position
Okkanti frames its market as a highly fragmented perinatal care sector in which hospital systems have EHRs while doulas and perinatal providers lack purpose-built operational software, and positions itself as software designed specifically for those practitioners. It points to expanding Medicaid, private insurer and employer-sponsored coverage of doula services, and to prevention-based maternal care as a means of reducing pre-term birth, low birth weight and primary cesarean rates while lowering healthcare spending. The Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation classifies the company under Health Technology and Information Technology in its Innovation Investment Portfolio.
The company emphasizes preserving the autonomy of locally trusted independent providers rather than employing them, a three-step vetting process for listed members, cross-category search spanning independent providers, agencies and community-doula programs, insurance and benefits pre-approval workflows, and operational tooling built specifically for doula practices including Medicaid billing support.
Technology
The core product is the CareFinder, described as an intelligent search and matching tool that aggregates available perinatal supports by specialty and zip code and allows direct scheduling and appointment tracking, with account creation requiring email and phone verification. Complementary practice tools handle scheduling, payments, client communication, billing and reimbursement, with HIPAA-compliance readiness cited for provider organizations.
Go-to-market
Provider acquisition begins with a discovery call to assess an organization's goals and challenges, supported by a membership application for doulas, physical therapists and lactation specialists, newsletters segmented for professionals and for pregnant and parenting people, and outreach to physicians and healthcare providers as referral partners. Consumers reach the platform through the CareFinder site, free consultations and free-consultation scheduling with Care Experts.
Three constituencies: pregnant, planning and parenting people seeking doula, postpartum, newborn, lactation, physical therapy and perinatal mental health support; independent doulas, small agencies, collectives and community-doula programs, as well as midwives and lactation specialists; and physicians and health providers who want to refer patients to home and community-based care without bias.
Geography
Okkanti Inc is listed at 4210 Barby Ln, Madison, Wisconsin, and appears in the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation's Innovation Investment Portfolio; the CareFinder matches care seekers to providers in their local area by zip code.
Compiled by commissioned research from 8 cited public sources — announcements, filings, and press listed under research sources below.
Key figures
latest reportedCompany-reported or press-reported figures, each dated to when it was claimed — not independently audited.
▸Research sources · 8
primary sources listed
- Okkantiokkanti.com · web
8 public sources were cited for this profile; the first-party ones are listed here.
Frequently asked questions
- What does Okkanti do?
- Okkanti is a maternity and infant care platform connecting families with vetted doulas and perinatal providers and giving those providers practice software.
- Who are Okkanti's investors?
- Okkanti's investors include Techstars.
- Where is Okkanti headquartered?
- Okkanti is headquartered in Madison, US.