Sunday, 2 July 2023, Bengaluru, India
An increasing number of workplaces provide benefits for fertility and reproductive healthcare. By luring in more women and LGBTQ+ persons, for instance, corporations can become more competitive employers and support initiatives for diversity, equity, and inclusion. London-based Fertifa hopes to allow more European businesses to provide reproductive benefits to employees. Virgin, Lululemon, Meta, Bain Capital, and others are already among its customers. The company announced a seed round of £5 million (approximately $6.3 million) sponsored by Notion Capital and Triple Point Ventures today.
Other participants included angel investors Eamon Jubbawy, Catherine and Jonathan Lenson, Dorothy Chou, Caroline, Mike Hudack, Scott Mackin, Conviction, Calm/Storm, Tiny: Vc, and the EQT Foundation. The round also saw the return of previous investors Passion Capital, Lemonade Stand, SpeedInvest, Tom Blomfield, the co-founder of Monzo, Adam Knight, and Jeremy Yap.
Tony Chen and Nick Kuan, who has since left the company but are still stockholders, created Fertifa in 2019. To guide the startup and oversee its business development, Eileen Burbidge, who co-led Fertifa’s pre-seed investment with her Passion Capital colleague Malin Posern, joined in January 2022 as executive director. At the moment, Fertifa employs 22 people.
Fertifa provides services that support surrogacy, adoption, contraception, fertility preservation through egg, embryo, and sperm freezing, IVF, IUI, and ICSI treatment cycles, as well as care for menopause, endometriosis, PCOS, fibroids, STIs, and men’s sexual health. According to Fertitta, revenue during the previous year climbed tenfold, and through employer-funded allowances, patients could save more than £1.5 million. Identifying ineligible claims has also helped employers save around £250,000 on compliance costs.
Other players in the market include Apryl, Maven Clinic, and Carrot, as well as Peppy, which specialises in educating Americans about endometriosis, PCOS, and menopause. According to Fertitta, what sets it apart from competitors is the breadth of its services, which include educational materials that employees can access via an app, clinical services provided by an internal team under the direction of medical director Dr. Gidon Lieberman, reimbursement administration, prescription writing, and fulfilment.
Burbidge continued, listing employers’ inaction as one of Fertifa’s key “competitors.” By presenting the business case for supporting reproductive health and wellness, Fertifa combats this. Employees frequently ask for it via their networks or executive sponsors. Another factor is when corporations observe how their rivals behave, invest in the market, and understand they must raise the standard since they compete for talent with those businesses.
All sizes of businesses can use Fertifa, which generates revenue using a per-employee, per-month pricing model. With an annual minimum cost, it also provides reimbursement administration for a 5% fee on transaction volume.
The new cash will enable Fertifa to expand its enterprise sales and introduce new services like treatment financing. Within a year, it wants to dominate the UK market, and by the end of 2024, it also wants to dominate the EMEA market.
[Source of Information: Techcrunch.com]
