Inito secures $6M to develop at home fertility tracker for women

Inito, a Bengaluru-based startup that emerged from Y Combinator, is changing the way women track their fertility hormones at home. Recently, they raised $6M in Series A funding, led by Fireside Ventures.

The core of their offering is an easy-to-use fertility monitor and kit, designed to provide quick and precise fertility diagnostic results directly on user's smartphone within 10 minutes.

• Founders Background: The company was brought to life in 2015 by CEO Aayush Rai and CTO Varun A Venkatesan, former employees of Siemens. Rai, who was involved in product development, and researcher Venkatesan bonded over kayaking sessions, aiming to make a real impact on people’s lives with their work.

• Advancements: Unlike standard at-home ovulation tests that only track estrogen and Luteinizing hormone (LH), Inito measures four fertility hormones: estrogen, LH, progesterone metabolite PdG and FSH with a single test strip. The kit includes the monitor, test strips and access to the Inito app. User's just need to dip the test strip in urine, snap the monitor to their phone and insert the test strip into the monitor.

• Unique Offerings: Inito goes beyond providing users with simple "yes/no" results, offering numerical values of fertility hormones and personalising results. It also confirms ovulation by tracking the rise in progesterone metabolite PdG and ensures precise timings for conception, especially for women with irregular cycles.

• Regulation and Pricing: The Inito Fertility Monitor is registered with the FDA as a Class I medical device and doesn't require FDA’s premarket notification submission.

The recently raised funds will be used to develop advanced analytics using AI, correlate symptoms with hormone levels, scale business operations including an Android app, invest in R&D for new products, and create tests for tracking pregnancy health, ovarian reserve and male fertility hormones.