Ava, a startup based in Switzerland and San Francisco, is trying to change the way couples conceive. The startup, co-founded by Lea von Bidder entered into the wearable technology industry in an attempt to use technology to help couples conceive a child who are struggling with getting pregnant.
Couples spend $10,000 – $20,000 on in vitro fertilization, and Ava aims to allow couples to get pregnant without the high cost attached.
Ava developed a wearable technology, a wristband, that is able to help determine the fertility reading of the wearer to increase the chances of getting pregnant. The first sensor was shipped by the company in July.
The wristband will monitor a woman’s temperature, heart rate and other vital metrics to be able to tell when she is most fertile each month. The short timespan when a woman can get pregnant every month is just six days.
Ava secured $2.6 million in funding in late July in an effort to bring their technology to the masses.
Women wear the wristband at night while they sleep, and the band collects data points, which can be viewed on the user’s smartphone via an app. Results of a study conducted at the University of Zurich took a group of 41 women aged 20 – 40 and collected data points of 180 menstrual cycles as a result.
The fertility bracelet was able to predict fertility with an 89% accuracy and an average of 5.3 fertile days per month.
Nine physical metrics in total will be tracked via the bracelet.
The bracelet has received approval from the FDA as a class one medical device. Ava’s bracelets are only available online on the company’s main store. Ava is only supported on iPhone 4s and later, or devices that are running iOS 9.0 or later. The company aims to release an Android app by late 2016.
