TORONTO, Jan. 6, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Future Fertility, a fertility technology company developing AI-enabled and non-invasive fertility solutions to optimize clinical decision making in fertility care and in vitro fertilization (IVF), today announced that it has successfully raised a Series A financing round. The investment was led by M Ventures (the corporate venture capital arm of Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany, a global fertility leader), with participation from Whitecap Venture Partners.
Future Fertility was co-founded in 2017 by Dr Dan Nayot, internationally renowned and practicing reproductive endocrinologist. The company's mission is to harness the power of AI to improve fertility care and IVF outcomes, lower its costs, and alleviate emotional stress of the patient journey. IVF is expensive, costing an average of USD 20,000 per treatment cycle, and is fraught with low success rates, with only ~30% of egg retrievals across all age groups resulting in live births. The targeted application of AI in the IVF process also has the potential to deliver new insights contributing to better understanding of mechanisms that underlie fertility pathologies.
Currently there is no standardized visual assessment tool used by embryologists to evaluate the reproductive potential of a mature human egg; the most step-limiting variable in a successful pregnancy. Future Fertility's first non-invasive AI solution can detect features of a human egg that are invisible to the eye and can predict the likelihood of fertilization and embryo (blastocyst) development. The product is already used in a number of innovative clinics around the world and has been consistently shown to be significantly more accurate at predicting egg viability compared to current methods.
Dr Dan Nayot, Co-Founder and Chief Medical Officer of Future Fertility, said: "Our technology has been proven to outperform embryologists in predicting the reproductive potential of an egg and can support decision-making in the IVF and egg freezing journeys. Our solutions finally add a significant missing diagnostic parameter to the IVF process, adding transparency to routine sperm and embryo assessment by uniquely addressing egg viability. Creating a validated egg scoring system has been a major challenge in the field and has now been made possible by AI. I am passionate about patient centricity and immensely proud that Future Fertility can address this gap and enable physicians like myself to better treat our patients."
Beyond its flagship egg prediction software product "Violet" developed for patients underdoing oocyte cryopreservation, Future Fertility has additional AI solutions in its pipeline, with the potential to improve key decisions in the 2.5 million IVF cycles each year, for which no non-invasive tools existed to date.
Therese Liechtenstein, M Ventures, commented: "M Ventures invests in transformational ideas that can have a significant impact on patients needs. Future Fertility offers unique solutions in the growing AI fertility space, enabling informed decision-making with the aim of revolutionizing the egg freezing and IVF patient journey, and its success rates. We are excited to support the team and progress their innovative solutions platform."
Shayn Diamond, Whitecap Venture Partners, added: "Future Fertility's solutions have the potential to address a significant unmet need. We are thrilled to support Future Fertility in its mission to leverage cutting-edge AI technology to make IVF more efficient and accessible for patients."
Diana Olusanmi, Chief Executive Officer of Future Fertility, said: "We are delighted to receive the support of such a prestigious syndicate of investors which will enable us to further develop our ground-breaking technology and to help improve the outcomes of IVF for millions of patients."
About Future Fertility
Future Fertility was founded in 2017, based on the scientific founder Dr. Dan Nayot's expertise and desire to make informed clinical decision-making during fertility care a reality. Future Fertility is a fertility technology company focused on AI-enabled and non-invasive diagnostic solutions to optimize decision making throughout the IVF journey, maximizing probability of positive outcomes in IVF workflows. The first product is an egg assessment software, which uniquely provides insights in egg quality and has the potential to improve success rates of IVF, egg freezing and egg donation cycles. For more information, visit: https://futurefertility.com/
About M Ventures
M Ventures is the strategic, corporate venture capital arm of Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany. From its headquarters in the Netherlands and offices in Germany, USA and Israel, M Ventures invests globally in transformational ideas driven by innovative entrepreneurs. Taking an active role in its portfolio companies, M Ventures teams up with management teams and co-investors to translate scientific discoveries into commercial success. M Ventures focuses on identifying and financing novel solutions to some of the most difficult challenges, through company creation and equity investments in fields that will impact the vitality and sustainability of Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany 's current and future businesses. For more information, visit www.m-ventures.com.
About Whitecap Venture Partners
Whitecap Venture Partners is a Toronto based early stage venture capital firm investing in high growth companies across B2B Software and MedTech. With a track record spanning almost three decades, its team of operators and investment professionals partner with entrepreneurs in verticals where they have deep domain expertise and can bring significant operational and strategic value to companies. Whitecap is investing out of their fifth fund, a $140M fund raised in 2021. Additional information is available at www.whitecapvp.com.
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Future Fertility was co-founded in 2017 by Dr Dan Nayot, internationally renowned and practicing reproductive endocrinologist. The company's mission is to harness the power of AI to improve fertility care and IVF outcomes, lower its costs, and alleviate emotional stress of the patient journey. IVF is expensive, costing an average of USD 20,000 per treatment cycle, and is fraught with low success rates, with only ~30% of egg retrievals across all age groups resulting in live births. The targeted application of AI in the IVF process also has the potential to deliver new insights contributing to better understanding of mechanisms that underlie fertility pathologies.
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Currently there is no standardized visual assessment tool used by embryologists to evaluate the reproductive potential of a mature human egg; the most step-limiting variable in a successful pregnancy. Future Fertility's first non-invasive AI solution can detect features of a human egg that are invisible to the eye and can predict the likelihood of fertilization and embryo (blastocyst) development. The product is already used in a number of innovative clinics around the world and has been consistently shown to be significantly more accurate at predicting egg viability compared to current methods.
Dr Dan Nayot, Co-Founder and Chief Medical Officer of Future Fertility, said: "Our technology has been proven to outperform embryologists in predicting the reproductive potential of an egg and can support decision-making in the IVF and egg freezing journeys. Our solutions finally add a significant missing diagnostic parameter to the IVF process, adding transparency to routine sperm and embryo assessment by uniquely addressing egg viability. Creating a validated egg scoring system has been a major challenge in the field and has now been made possible by AI. I am passionate about patient centricity and immensely proud that Future Fertility can address this gap and enable physicians like myself to better treat our patients."
Beyond its flagship egg prediction software product "Violet" developed for patients underdoing oocyte cryopreservation, Future Fertility has additional AI solutions in its pipeline, with the potential to improve key decisions in the 2.5 million IVF cycles each year, for which no non-invasive tools existed to date.
Therese Liechtenstein, M Ventures, commented: "M Ventures invests in transformational ideas that can have a significant impact on patients needs. Future Fertility offers unique solutions in the growing AI fertility space, enabling informed decision-making with the aim of revolutionizing the egg freezing and IVF patient journey, and its success rates. We are excited to support the team and progress their innovative solutions platform."
Shayn Diamond, Whitecap Venture Partners, added: "Future Fertility's solutions have the potential to address a significant unmet need. We are thrilled to support Future Fertility in its mission to leverage cutting-edge AI technology to make IVF more efficient and accessible for patients."
Diana Olusanmi, Chief Executive Officer of Future Fertility, said: "We are delighted to receive the support of such a prestigious syndicate of investors which will enable us to further develop our ground-breaking technology and to help improve the outcomes of IVF for millions of patients."
About Future Fertility
Future Fertility was founded in 2017, based on the scientific founder Dr. Dan Nayot's expertise and desire to make informed clinical decision-making during fertility care a reality. Future Fertility is a fertility technology company focused on AI-enabled and non-invasive diagnostic solutions to optimize decision making throughout the IVF journey, maximizing probability of positive outcomes in IVF workflows. The first product is an egg assessment software, which uniquely provides insights in egg quality and has the potential to improve success rates of IVF, egg freezing and egg donation cycles. For more information, visit: https://futurefertility.com/
About M Ventures
M Ventures is the strategic, corporate venture capital arm of Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany. From its headquarters in the Netherlands and offices in Germany, USA and Israel, M Ventures invests globally in transformational ideas driven by innovative entrepreneurs. Taking an active role in its portfolio companies, M Ventures teams up with management teams and co-investors to translate scientific discoveries into commercial success. M Ventures focuses on identifying and financing novel solutions to some of the most difficult challenges, through company creation and equity investments in fields that will impact the vitality and sustainability of Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany 's current and future businesses. For more information, visit www.m-ventures.com.
About Whitecap Venture Partners
Whitecap Venture Partners is a Toronto based early stage venture capital firm investing in high growth companies across B2B Software and MedTech. With a track record spanning almost three decades, its team of operators and investment professionals partner with entrepreneurs in verticals where they have deep domain expertise and can bring significant operational and strategic value to companies. Whitecap is investing out of their fifth fund, a $140M fund raised in 2021. Additional information is available at www.whitecapvp.com.
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