Former Uber executive Lauren Makler and health tech angel investor Halle Tecco launched the business Cofertility, which provides free egg freezing to women in return for donating half of the recovered eggs to infertile individuals.
In recent years, several women are considering egg freezing as a way to preserve their fertility due to the concentration on their careers and the delayed marriage age. However, many women cannot afford the treatment during their most productive years, which are their 20s and early 30s, due to its high cost, which is believed to be between $10,000 and $15,000 per attempt.
With participation from Initialised, Gaingels, and a number of other investors, the three-year-old firm just raised $7.25 million in a Series A round headed by Next Ventures and Offline Ventures. With this funding round, Cofertility has raised a total of $16 million.
Makler’s fertility and health scare served as the impetus for Cofertility. After receiving a rare abdominal ailment diagnosis in 2018, she underwent many procedures that put her ovaries in danger of being removed. In these circumstances, doctors may advise young women who wish to become pregnant to freeze their eggs, but Makler did not have that option. She thus began to study as much as she could about donating eggs.
She was surprised to discover how costly the eggs could be, even though she was aware that donors received payment for their contributions. It would be more expensive if she desired an egg from a Jewish donor to reflect her heritage. If she asked an educated woman for an egg, the cost went up much more.
“It felt sort of like surge pricing for egg donors, which felt icky to me,” she said, referring to Uber’s approach for charging for rides during peak-demand times.
Fortunately, Makler was able to conceive naturally, but the experience inspired her to start a company that connects those in need of a donor egg with young women who want to maintain their fertility. Although egg sharing is not a novel idea, Makler asserts that Cofertility is the only business that provides eggs in large quantities through its “Split” service.
“At any given time, we have hundreds of donors that are available for intended parents,” Makler said, adding that most clinics will have only a handful of donors, which is unlikely to result in a match.
According to Makler, around 55% of the egg donors from Cofertility have graduate degrees and come from a variety of backgrounds. Like with regular egg donation, intended parents pay for the egg retrieval and Cofertility’s coordinating fee. Their out-of-pocket costs are reduced, though, because they are exempt from paying the donor. Although Makler does not want to refer to Cofertility as a marketplace, she acknowledges that it functions similarly and that her business is resolving a significant structural issue.
“The big vision and the goal is removing the taboo of egg donation,” she said, “There is zero shame in however you become a parent. Doing that with the help of a donor who’s also interested in freezing her own eggs is a really exciting option.”
