Cofertility, a Los Angeles-based startup, aims to make home building more equitable and accessible, and has earned $7.25 million in Series A funding this month. Financing Round – To date, Cofertility’s total funding has reached $16 million), led by the next venture capital and offline venture capital.
The company was founded in 2022 to make eggs more affordable by tying them to egg donations. Cofertory offers women two plans: keeping and splitting. With Keep, women can pay to freeze eggs and store them for later use. The splitting program allows women to freeze eggs when donating half of their families to a family that cannot be pregnant.
By freezing egg donations and eggs together, Cofertility is addressing several key issues in fertility, CEO Lauren Makler said.
First, one of the most important issues in the fertility industry is the exclusion costs associated with egg freezing — typically between $12,000 and $20,000, she noted.
“For most women, it's simply out of reach, especially given that the best time to freeze eggs is usually when we can't afford it, and when we're the least likely to think about it.”
She added that there is also a stigma around donating eggs – which is largely rooted in the cash compensation model.
This stigma not only prevents women from pursuing what they might want (help another family grow up), but also limits the choice of purposeful parents. Markler notes that this puzzle disproportionately affects the LGBTQ community, and egg donations are often crucial to building families.
She also noted that there is a great deal of racial diversity among donors, which leaves prospective parents with insufficient choice to develop families that reflect their background. More than half of Cofertity donors see it as women of color.
“Our integrated approach makes fertility more accessible, addresses the lack of racial and socio-economic diversity in egg donations and makes the process less transactions, which makes it possible that this situation might have otherwise not been considered,” she declared.
Makler said the startup’s platform and egg donor database simplify the entire egg donation process – from recruitment to matching to cycle coordination.
Booked parents can browse donor profiles that give insight into each donor’s personality and motivation as well as photos and videos.
“We wanted a platform that complements our human-centric approach and provides educational, supportive and personalized guidance in the process. It's in order to make your family feel like it's personal, intimate and authentic,” Makler said.
She added that once the scheduled parents match the donor, they all have access to a personalized dashboard that can accurately track their locations along the way.
Cofetility has not disclosed its total number, but Makler said the company helped “thousands of” members on a family-building journey. She also noted that the startup’s targeted match between parents and donors grew 80% year-on-year.
While a few clinics around the world have egg-sharing products, Markler announced that no other company has pulled it apart on a massive scale.
“We have already made egg donation and egg freezing as part of a single ecosystem, rather than an isolated service. We are not only another egg donor agency or fertility clinic. We are a platform that gives women control over their reproductive futures, but also helps parents help their families grow in every part of the journey, while having transparency and compassion,” she explains. ”
Photo: Flashing user Niels Soderman
