Maro has created a platform to help families and schools navigate tough conversations about mental health. The company, which debuted at TechCrunch as part of Battlefield 200, unveiled a product called Maro Parents in 2020. Now, the company is preparing to launch Maro in schools next week to help students identify anxiety and depression. With parental consent.
Based in Tennessee, the startup was founded by Kenzie Butera Davis and initially planned to bring Maroons into schools to help children with mental health issues. But these plans have been put on hold in 2020 as schools have to be set up online due to the pandemic. Maro then decided to bring the platform into homes through the Maro for Parents app. Among other things, the app includes digital modules and an AI-powered bot to help parents discuss difficult topics with their children.
Although Marrow will officially launch it for schools next week, 350 schools in 40 states have already signed up to screen 100,000 students for anxiety and depression, he said. The program will be accessible through an annual subscription fee, but the company did not disclose the price.
Maro’s upcoming school launch platform aims to provide teachers with accessible lesson plans around mental health. Maro provides school teachers with resources on sex education, substance abuse, and more. The platform allows for streamlined communication between teachers and mentors. If a counselor believes a child needs additional care, Maro connects them with referral partners who provide virtual care.
Maro does not run virtual care for schools, but instead aims to identify at-risk children early and then link them to virtual care teams.
“We’ve created a platform where we can screen children and direct them to the clinical teams that care for the child. We’re essentially acting as a marketplace for child development and mental health,” Tariq Chawry, Maro’s chief medical officer, told TechCrunch. We don’t want to be directly in medicine because we don’t want to weaken our company.
Maro’s back-to-school launch comes the same month the U.S. Prevention Series Task Force proposed screening for anxiety among children ages 8-18.
Maro is raising $1.5 million in a pre-seed round and plans to use the investment to expand its current 11-person team and further build its product. Maro expects to close the round within the next quarter.
