Fertility start-up secures US$4.2m in funding to support underserved communities

The US fertility start-up Mate Fertility has raised US$4.2m in funding to make treatment accessible for thousands in underserved communities.

The high-tech company is closing its Series A round next month, having raised the first US$4.2m of a US$5m round, predominantly from institutional investors.

However, it is considering closing out the round with some crowdfunding to give the community a chance to be part of the round.

With 10 to 15 per cent of couples in the US having difficulty conceiving, Mate wants to make the path to parenthood less complicated, less expensive, and a lot more accessible.

The start-up aims is to make fertility treatment affordable and consistent throughout the United States by finding “fertility deserts” and upskilling OB/GYN partner providers.

“We partner with OB/GYNs in underserved markets or underserved communities within broader markets, to bring these services back into their practice rather than having to have them refer out and then patients having to travel great distances to get these treatments,” Mate Fertility CEO, Traci Keen, tells TechCrunch.

“We take a different approach and say ‘What is the latest technology? What do the latest data tell us about dosing mechanisms?’ We handle the lab oversight and compliance and embryology programme for our partners as well.

“And we’re also less expensive because there’s a big socio-economic factor involved here.”

Alongside stepping up practical and logistical support, the latest funding round will also help the company continue educating people working in the fertility sector.

“We try to be a lot more agnostic about how we talk to patients, even from the first take, we acknowledge that there are a lot of single people trying to build families, there are a lot of LGBTQ people, people of colour, transgender people,” says Keen, who is also part of the LGBTQ+ community.

“We make sure that we’re not assuming an identity when we talk to a patient to make it a much more comfortable experience across the board,” the CEO adds.

“We take a great deal of care to make sure that our contents are written a lot more friendly to single people or LGBTQ people and we do a lot of education with our providers in the beginning about how to address transgender patients.”