Alife Health, which creates artificial intelligence-enabled software to assist in vitro fertilization, raised $9.5 million in Seed funding.
Lux Capital led the round with participation from Amplo, IA Ventures, and Springbank Collective.
Several angel investors participated in the round include, Anne Wojcicki, the founder and CEO of 23andMe; Fred Moll, the founder of Intuitive Surgical and Auris; Amira Yahyaoui, the founder of Mos and Sequoia Scout; Arthur Patterson, the founder of Accel; Dr. Tom Lee the founder of One Medical Group and Galileo Health; and the founders of Ramp and Headway.
As part of the investment, Alife also added Deena Shakir, a partner at Lux Capital, to its board of directors.
According to the company statement, one in eight families now struggles with infertility; the average healthy couple has a 20% natural fertility rate per cycle, and miscarriages in women increase by about 1% each year.
Alife Health, a fertility technology company, founded in 2020, is developing AI software designed to improve fertility care, starting with in vitro fertilization (IVF). The company’s technology aims to empower clinical decision-making with personalized treatment recommendations to help clinicians maximize a patient’s chances of success while lowering costs and barriers to access.
“We’ve applied advanced machine learning in countless other medical imaging fields, but we are only just starting to scratch the surface on how it can be used to advance family and reproductive health. There is a tremendous opportunity for technology to transform the IVF experience and ultimately contribute to advancing human health and health equity. Alife Health is leading this effort with its unique, technology-forward, human-centered approach,” said Deena Shakir, partner at Lux Capital.
“Paxton has assembled an all-star team of scientists, engineers, and designers, and an incredibly respected group of scientific advisors and clinical partners to bring the benefit of this technology to patients, with inclusivity and equity at the core of the mission. I have spent a long time looking for the cutting edge technology that can improve fertility options, and I could not be more excited to back this breakthrough team.”
Clinical decision support companies raised $661 million in Q1 2021, according to the recently released Mercom’s Q1 2021 Digital Health Funding and M&A Report. VieCure, a real-time clinical decision support system, announced the closing of its $25 million Series A growth equity investment round, led by Northpond Ventures.
