Reproductive health firm Fertifa seeds growth with £5m funding

A reproductive health start-up run by one of Britain’s most prominent venture capitalists has clinched a £5m funding round despite a difficult financing market for early-stage companies.

Sky News understands that Fertifa, which provides corporate clients with wellbeing services for employees facing fertility and other sexual health challenges, will announce on Friday that it has raised the money from blue-chip investors including Notion Capital and Triple Point Ventures.

The company has processed more than £1.5m-worth of employer-funded reimbursements to employees for fertility treatments in the last year.

Its clients include Lululemon, Meta, Bain Capital, Space NK, the law firm Osborne Clarke, Centrica and Virgin.

It is also the exclusive provider of the insurer Aviva UK’s family planning and fertility benefit for a large number of benefit schemes.

Fertifa sells its offering based on a per-employee, per-month pricing model, and offers reimbursement administration by charging a 5% fee on transaction volumes.

Reproductive and sexual health wellbeing services have become an increasingly important element of employee benefit packages at major companies in recent years, although only a minority offer them currently.

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Fertifa, which raised a pre-seed round last year led by Speedinvest, is run by Eileen Burbidge, the founder of Passion Capital and an investor in well-known start-ups such as the digital bank Monzo.

Ms Burbidge said: “Providing our patients with wellbeing support funded by their workplaces brings such peace of mind for them – and reflects and evidences those employers’ commitments to [diversity, equity and inclusion] and supporting employee wellbeing at particularly sensitive times and when those employees are more valuable to the business 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 services aimed at men’s reproductive health as well as assisting women going through the menopause and other aspects of adult sexual health.

The company said it had grown revenues more than tenfold over the last year, and had saved employer clients nearly £250,000 through the identification of ineligible claims.

Founded in 2019 by Tony Chen and Nick Kuan, Ms Burbidge has been running Fertifa since early last year.

Itxaso del Palacio, a partner at Notion Capital, said: “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 is a massive opportunity for a team with commitment to better outcomes to make a significant impact.

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

Manuel Antunes, investment manager at Triple Point Ventures, said that reproductive health had been “overlooked in European public health systems and not covered by most private insurance plans”.

Recent research suggests that 42% of women consider leaving their jobs due to symptoms of perimenopause and menopause.

Fertifa is targeting being the UK market leader in the sector within 12 months, and then in the EMEA region by the end of 2024.

Based in London, it is also preparing to launch a financing product to help clients’ employees fund their use of reproductive health services.

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