Cofertility<\/a>, a startup founded by former Uber executive Lauren Makler and health tech angel investor Halle Tecco, offers women no-cost egg freezing in exchange for donating half the retrieved eggs to those unable to conceive.<\/p>\nThe three-year-old startup just raised a $7.25 million Series A round led by Next Ventures and Offline Ventures, with participation from Initialized, Gaingels, and several other investors. This financing round brings Cofertility\u2019s total funding to $16 million.<\/p>\n
The idea for Cofertility stems from Makler\u2019s fertility and health scare. A 2018 diagnosis of a rare abdominal disease led to multiple surgeries that threatened the loss of her ovaries.<\/p>\n
In such situations, doctors sometimes suggest egg freezing for young women who want to have children, but that was not an option for Makler.<\/p>\n
So, she started to learn as much as possible about egg donation.<\/p>\n
Makler knew donors were compensated for their eggs, but she was shocked to learn how expensive the eggs could be. If she wanted an egg from a Jewish donor to match her background, it would cost more. The price increased further if she sought an egg from an educated woman.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt felt sort of like surge pricing for egg donors, which felt icky to me,\u201d she said, referring to Uber\u2019s approach for charging for rides during peak-demand times.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Luckily, Makler ended up conceiving a child naturally, but that experience led her to want to build a business that matches young women who wish to preserve their fertility with people who need a donor egg.<\/p>\n
While the concept of egg sharing is not new, Makler claims that Cofertility is the only company that offers eggs at scale through its \u201cSplit\u201d program.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt any given time, we have hundreds of donors that are available for intended parents,\u201d Makler said, adding that most clinics will have only a handful of donors, which is unlikely to result in a match.<\/p>\n
Makler says that Cofertility\u2019s egg donors come from diverse backgrounds and that about 55% of them have graduate degrees.<\/p>\n
Intended parents cover the egg retrieval costs and Cofertility\u2019s coordination fee, similar to standard egg donation. However, they don\u2019t have to compensate the donor, lowering their out-of-pocket expenses.<\/p>\n
While Makler doesn\u2019t want to call Cofertility a marketplace, she agrees that it works like one and that her company is solving a big structural problem.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe big vision and the goal is removing the taboo of egg donation,\u201d she said, \u201cThere is zero shame in however you become a parent. Doing that with the help of a donor who\u2019s also interested in freezing her own eggs is a really exciting option.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In recent years, focus on career and delayed marriage age is driving some women to consider preserving their fertility through egg freezing. But the steep cost of the procedure, estimated at $10,000 to $15,000 per attempt, means many women can\u2019t afford it during their most fertile years: 20s and early 30s. Cofertility, a startup founded […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":161771,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-161770","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tech"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/161770","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=161770"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/161770\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/161771"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=161770"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=161770"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=161770"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}