Reproductive well being agency Fertifa seeds development with £5m funding

A reproductive well being start-up run by one among Britain’s most outstanding enterprise capitalists has clinched a £5m funding spherical regardless of a troublesome financing marketplace for early-stage corporations.

Sky News understands that Fertifa, which offers company shoppers with wellbeing companies for workers dealing with fertility and different sexual well being challenges, will announce on Friday that it has raised the cash from blue-chip buyers together with Notion Capital and Triple Point Ventures.

The firm has processed greater than £1.5m-worth of employer-funded reimbursements to staff for fertility therapies within the final yr.

Its shoppers embrace Lululemon, Meta, Bain Capital, Space NK, the regulation agency Osborne Clarke, Centrica and Virgin.

It can also be the unique supplier of the insurer Aviva UK’s household planning and fertility profit for a lot of profit schemes.

Fertifa sells its providing based mostly on a per-employee, per-month pricing mannequin, and affords reimbursement administration by charging a 5% payment on transaction volumes.

Reproductive and sexual well being wellbeing companies have turn out to be an more and more vital aspect of worker profit packages at main corporations in recent times, though solely a minority provide them presently.

Fertifa, which raised a pre-seed spherical final yr led by Speedinvest, is run by Eileen Burbidge, the founding father of Passion Capital and an investor in well-known start-ups such because the digital financial institution Monzo.

Ms Burbidge stated: “Providing our sufferers with wellbeing help funded by their workplaces brings such peace of thoughts for them – and displays and evidences these employers’ commitments to [diversity, equity and inclusion] and supporting worker wellbeing at significantly delicate instances and when these staff are extra beneficial to the enterprise than ever.

“There is such an obvious commercial business case to employee wellbeing, particularly when it relates to reproductive health journeys, and we are proud to deliver it better than anyone else in Europe.”

Fertifa facilitates companies geared toward males’s reproductive well being in addition to helping girls going by means of the menopause and different elements of grownup sexual well being.

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The firm stated it had grown revenues greater than tenfold over the past yr, and had saved employer shoppers practically £250,000 by means of the identification of ineligible claims.

Founded in 2019 by Tony Chen and Nick Kuan, Ms Burbidge has been working Fertifa since early final yr.

Itxaso del Palacio, a companion at Notion Capital, stated: “Although there is eight times more spent on assisted reproductive technology in Europe than the US, there are three unicorn companies in the US and none in Europe.

“It’s clear that there’s a huge alternative for a group with dedication to higher outcomes to make a major affect.

“We believe we have found this in Fertifa and are excited to see what can be achieved.”

Manuel Antunes, funding supervisor at Triple Point Ventures, stated that reproductive well being had been “overlooked in European public health systems and not covered by most private insurance plans”.

Recent analysis means that 42% of ladies take into account leaving their jobs as a result of signs of perimenopause and menopause.

Fertifa is concentrating on being the UK market chief within the sector inside 12 months, after which within the EMEA area by the top of 2024.

Based in London, it is usually getting ready to launch a financing product to assist shoppers’ staff fund their use of reproductive well being companies.