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RethinkFirst

Four businesses under one roof, and the only ABA software company whose early funding is public record.

The short version

Founded
20072
Headquarters
New York, New York2
Backed by
K1 Investment Management, since 20201
Chief executive
Dinesh Senanayake, since 20263
Money raised
$14,925,000 before K1, per SEC filings10

RethinkFirst was founded in New York in 2007 by Daniel Etra and Eran Rosenthal, building training tools for autism treatment. It registered with the SEC the following year — originally under the name Treat Autism Now Inc — and that decision left a paper trail almost nobody else in this category has.4

Between 2009 and 2014 the company filed a series of Form D notices with the SEC, each disclosing the amount sold. They total $14,925,000, ending with a $10 million round led by Beringea and Arboretum Ventures. Everywhere else in ABA software, funding is private and unconfirmed; here it can simply be read.10

In 2020 K1 Investment Management invested and the company started buying: a telehealth platform, a mindfulness company, a K-12 learning product, a therapy practice-management system, an ABA billing service, and in 2025 a disability-support platform whose customers included Best Buy and Dropbox. The ABA software is now one division of four.1

How it got here

2007
Founded in New York by Daniel Etra and Eran Rosenthal.2
2009–2014
SEC filings disclose $14,925,000 raised: seven offerings between 2009 and 2011 totalling $4,925,000, then $10,000,000 in 2014.10
August 2020
K1 Investment Management invests. Amount not disclosed. Rethink simultaneously buys TheraWe, a telehealth platform.1
2021–2023
Buys Whil, Vizzle, Total Therapy and ABA Therapy Billing and Insurance Services.1
March 2023
Launches RethinkFutures, selling clinical analytics to health insurers.6
January 2025
Ben Semmes appointed CEO.7
March 2026
Dinesh Senanayake appointed CEO.3

Money and ownership

WhatAmountDetail
2009–2011$4,925,000Seven Form D filings, the largest a 2011 offering that closed at $3,115,000 after two amendments.10
June 2014$10,000,000Recorded in the company's Form D. PE Hub reported the round as led by Beringea and Arboretum Ventures; its detail sits behind a paywall, so we cite only its public headline.5
K1 Investment ManagementNot disclosedAugust 2020. No filing, no figure, and neither party used the words majority, control or acquisition.1
Size, as the company reports it self-reported figures by year
As ofReported
2020~500 clinical customers, 300+ school districts, 25+ Fortune 100 companies1
202230,000+ clinicians on the ABA product8
202511+ million employees covered, 96,000+ behavioral healthcare providers11
202611+ million employees covered, one third of the Fortune 1003
What we could not confirm 6 open questions
  • The K1 deal amount and stake were never disclosed, and unlike the earlier rounds there is no SEC filing for it.1
  • In October 2023 two trade outlets reported that K1 was moving Rethink into a continuation fund. Both stories are paywalled and we could not confirm whether it closed. The most recent proof of K1 ownership is its own April 2022 portfolio page.9
  • Why Daniel Etra left is not public. His last confirmed appearance as CEO is March 2023, and the announcement of his successor does not mention him.6
  • Jamie Pagliaro is widely described as a co-founder. No official source calls him one.2
  • Revenue has never been disclosed. The '$12.4 million raised' figure circulating online traces only to Crunchbase, not to any filing — the SEC filings total $14,925,000.10
  • The company reports its reach in two different ways — 15 million people supported in one release, 11+ million employees covered in another from the same year. They are not the same measure and we do not combine them.11

Sources

  1. Rethink partners with K1 — PR Newswire11 Aug 2020
  2. RethinkFirst — Aboutaccessed 1 Aug 2026
  3. RethinkFirst names Dinesh Senanayake CEO12 Mar 2026
  4. Rethink Autism, Inc. — SEC filing history, CIK 0001433164accessed 1 Aug 2026
  5. Beringea, Arboretum Ventures lead $10m in Rethink — PE Hub18 Aug 2014
  6. RethinkFirst unveils RethinkFutures — PR Newswire7 Mar 2023
  7. RethinkFirst appoints Ben Semmes CEO — PR Newswire8 Jan 2025
  8. RethinkFirst acquires Total Therapy — PR Newswire18 Jan 2022
  9. K1 runs continuation fund process including Rethink — Buyouts Insider24 Oct 2023
  10. Rethink Autism, Inc. — SEC Form D, $10,000,000 offering3 Jun 2014
  11. RethinkFirst acquires Joshin (11+ million employees)19 Aug 2025

Related

How we researched this. Every numbered citation above links to the document it came from — a company or investor announcement, a regulatory filing, or a government business register. Funding aggregators were used only to find those documents, never as a source for a figure: where a widely repeated number has no traceable origin, we leave it out and say so. Nothing on this page is estimated or inferred. Something wrong or out of date? Send a correction.