Exclusive: Fertility player Kindbody gets $100M at $1.8B valuation

Fertility clinic operator and employer benefits provider Kindbody raised $100 million at a $1.8 billion valuation, chair Gina Bartasi tells Axios exclusively.

Why it matters: As demand for infertility services rises, tech-forward companies say they can offer people more transparency and convenience than traditional approaches.

Deal details: Life science investment firm Perceptive Advisors provided the funds, tipping Kindbody’s total equity and debt capital to just over $290 million and making the company the second of its kind to hit unicorn status.

• Kindbody is using the funds to acquire additional virtual health and fertility companies and open 10 new locations, including in Seattle, Brooklyn, Miami, Philadelphia and California's East Bay.
• 'This will be the last money in," Bartasi says. "We are projecting to be EBITDA- and cash-flow-positive this year."

Of note: Bartasi says Kindbody expects to be "ready when the markets open back up in 2024," when asked about the company's previously stated intent to go public.

State of play: Fertility startups banked a record $424 million in the last quarter of 2021, per a Rock Health report.

• Maven Clinic, the first maternal and family health startup to reach coveted unicorn status, last fall collected $90 million in Series E funds.
• Legacy, a celebrity-backed sperm testing and storage startup, last summer banked $25 million in Series B funds at a valuation of $150 million.
• Combining fertility financing and care support, Future Family last spring raised $25 million in Series B funding at an $80 million valuation.

How it works: Based in New York, Kindbody functions as payer and provider and offers customers bundled rates for its services, which include fertility and nutrition consultations, in-vitro fertilization (IVF), egg freezing and virtual therapy.

• Roughly half of Kindbody's revenue comes from employers while 30% comes from its managed care service line. The other 20% comes from people who use its services directly, says Bartasi.

• To predict someone's success conceiving, Kindbody assesses factors including male infertility, a woman's age and pregnancy history, and her levels of anti-mullerian hormone (AMH), which corresponds to egg count, and follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH), which stimulates egg production.

What she's saying: "The only way you can improve the patient experience, increase outcomes and reduce costs is to be in the provision of care," says Bartasi.

By the numbers: Kindbody provides benefits to 112 companies and sees roughly 7,200 patients a month.

• 88% of its physicians are women and more than half identify as Black, Indigenous or people of color (BIPOC).
• Its average patient age is 36.

🛁 One fun thing: Kindbody's clinics are designed not to look like a traditional doctor's office.

• "Our patients leave and say it looks like a spa," Bartasi says. "There are no white walls, no white coats, no medical degrees on the walls."