A startup from YC, Inito provides fast at-home fertility hormone tracking for women. Fireside Ventures led the $6 million Series A fundraising round for the company. In only ten minutes, consumers can receive simple-to-read fertility diagnostic results on their phone thanks to the startup’s fertility monitor and kit.
Previously employed by the massive medical technology company Siemens, CEO Aayush Rai and CTO Varun A Venkatesan started the Bengaluru, India-based firm in 2015. Rai was a product development specialist and Venkatesan studied medical items. During their Sunday kayaking sessions, the two became closer and discussed how they intended to spent their lives making a real difference in the lives of others. They ultimately quit their jobs to found Inito, a company that aims to create technologies that enable people to better understand and take care of their health at home.
Standard at-home ovulation tests detect estrogen and luteinizing hormone (LH) to anticipate your fertile days, but they do not measure progesterone metabolite PdG, the hormone that confirms your ovulation. Using a single test strip, Inito measures the four fertility hormones: FSH, LH, progesterone metabolite PdG, and estrogen.
Test strips, the monitor, and access to the Inito app are all included in the bundle. The monitor is precise in reading high-density test strips and fits snugly onto your smartphone. Inito offers step-by-step instructions and reminds you to test on specific days after you register for the app and enter your cycle data. After dipping the test strip in pee, you attach the monitor to your phone and place the test strip inside.
Other common tests yield “yes/no” readings, and tracking fertile days and confirming ovulation requires using separate test strips. Your body receives personalized results from Inito, which gives you the numerical levels of your reproductive hormones. In addition to providing your entire six-day window for fertilisation, it also verifies that you ovulate by measuring the increase in the progesterone metabolite PdG.
According to the company, precise information about when you ovulate and when to try to conceive is essential if you have irregular cycles.
“Our app looks at the evolution of four hormones together and determines if the fertility rating for that day is low, high, or peak and if ovulation has indeed occurred in this cycle,” Rai told TechCrunch. “Unlike other products that leave the interpretation of hormone values to the user.” “We have gone one step further with the most recent AI developments by providing a natural language explanation for a result.”
The FDA has registered the Inito Fertility Monitor as a Class I medical device, exempting it from the need to submit premarket notifications.
The device and fifteen test strips are included in the $149 fertility monitor starter set. Refill strips run $49 per pack. You can get both products on Amazon and Inito.
With the fresh cash, the business intends to leverage artificial intelligence to develop even more sophisticated insights. Over 2.5 million tests have been completed by Inito users, according to Rai, providing the business with a vast data set to train its algorithms on the interactions between the four main hormones in a menstrual cycle. The startup aims to enable customers to link their hormones to their symptoms, moods, sleep patterns, and medications.
Additionally, Inito desires to grow its company activities. The startup’s app is only available on iOS right now, but Inito intends to develop an Android app with the additional cash. Furthermore, Inito wishes to spend money on R&D for new goods.
“This funding raise will allow us to invest in R&D for new tests that cater to solving problems faced by both patients and practitioners, even though fertility hormone testing is our first product,” Rai stated. We are developing point-of-care assays to monitor male fertility hormones, ovarian reserve, and pregnancy wellness. Our technique enhances the precision, dependability, and density of test strips by combining biotechnology, hardware, and machine learning, enabling the measurement of numerous parameters on a single testing platform.
With this fresh round, Inito has now raised $15 million in fundraising. Prior to this, the firm secured $9 million from Y Combinator, Varsha Rao, the former CEO of Nurx, as well as twelve doctors and family offices.
Regarding the company’s long-term goals, they think that every person should have access to medical information and body data.
In order to empower people with direct access to health information and promote a better awareness of their bodies and health situations, Venkatesan stated, “We want to bring a variety of tests for fertility and beyond on a single device at home.” “We envision a time when Inito will be as commonplace as a thermometer, existing in every home.”
