Calgary-based Insurtech startup Flora Fertility has raised $1.5 million CAD in pre-seed funding as it prepares to take its fertility insurance platform to market in the United States next year.
The all-equity round was led by returning investor Highline Beta, with participation from Silicon Valley-based Cartography Capital, and New York and Los Angeles-based Everywhere Ventures. It brings the startup’s total funding to approximately $2 million CAD.
According to the Canadian Fertility and Andrology Society, an estimated one in six Canadians experience infertility.
Flora Fertility offers an individualized fertility insurance platform, targeting women aged 20 to 34, and providing coverage until age 44 for diagnostics, medications, and treatment related to women hoping to conceive.
The startup was founded in 2023 by CEO Laura J. McDonald, president Christy Lane, and Somil Jain. While McDonald and Lane come from different backgrounds—McDonald from the financial sector and Lane from women’s health research—both are exited founders.
McDonald previously founded GoldenGirlFinance.com, a media company focused on female wealth influencers, which sold to a Canadian brokerage firm in 2015. Lane founded, led, and eventually sold health analytics company Vivametrica to Sprout. The two were connected through a common connection at a large reinsurer.
“We just have a lot of synergies in the way we’re approaching this and complementary skill sets that allow us to tackle this model,” McDonald added.
According to the Canadian Fertility and Andrology Society, an estimated one in six Canadians experience infertility on average. While there are avenues today for women to conceive despite fertility issues, such as in vitro fertilization (IVF) and intrauterine insemination (IUI), many of these treatments and medications are very costly, often totalling tens of thousands of dollars.
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McDonald explained that solutions for funding fertility treatment have, thus far, primarily focused on loans, and innovations in insurance have largely targeted Fortune 500 companies, leaving small and medium-sized businesses unable to offer comparable benefits.
This gap also leaves many gig economy workers lacking portable coverage. Current provincial tax credits also often don’t cover pre-IVF costs such as medications, diagnostics, or multiple treatment rounds, Lane explained.
“The vast majority of our population does not have access to any sort of coverage to cover fertility treatment,” McDonald added.
Flora Fertility aims to provide women with financial stability when it comes to managing their fertility. For founders McDonald and Lane, the mission is personal—McDonald has witnessed family members and friends face fertility challenges, while Lane went through fertility treatments herself before having her three children.
“Thirteen or fourteen years ago, nobody was talking about this,” Lane added. “I had friends, family members, colleagues, who were also struggling with infertility, and nobody was talking to each other about it. I [thought] that there has to be a better way to solve this.”
Flora Fertility operates on a B2B2C model, with plans to primarily distribute policies through channel partners such as women’s health apps, small and medium-sized business employer groups, and affinity organizations. This allows smaller businesses to offer fertility benefits comparable to Fortune 500 companies.
Flora Fertility’s platform differs from standard fertility insurance by offering individually owned policies, allowing women to maintain coverage regardless of changes in employment or personal circumstances. Lane explained that the startup functions as a digital managing general agency (MGA) since it partners with insurance carriers and reinsurers to handle all aspects of the insurance process except taking on the financial risk.
It also claims to be the first company to develop individual risk models for fertility insurance, which it does by integrating women’s health research into the insurance process.
Lane said the startup is currently focused on building its underwriting engine and claims platform. Flora Fertility has already secured channel partnerships, which McDonald said will provide access to over 10 million women of reproductive age, though the founders declined to reveal specific partner names.
Last year, Flora Fertility completed the InsurTech NY MGA Lab accelerator in New York. It was there the founders were connected with Ben Yoskowitz and Marcus Daniels, two of the founding partners of venture studio Highline Beta.
“They’ve been fantastic partners,” McDonald said of Highline Beta. “[We’re in] a highly regulated environment, and there’s a high barrier to entry in this space. But they really believed in the model.”
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Lane said the startup plans to launch its platform next year, starting in the US, followed by a rollout in Canada. The funding will be used to establish the necessary legal and compliance infrastructure for the US launch.
“The product type that we’re going to market with in the US is actually quite MGA-friendly,” Lane added. “So it allows us to go to market in all 50 states.”
Access to reproductive healthcare has become restrictive in recent years, particularly in states with abortion restrictions, which typically have fewer maternity care providers, CNN reported earlier this year.
The startup believes that restrictions on women’s reproductive rights in the US make a Flora Fertility insurance policy increasingly relevant. “Flora is leading with the belief that your health outcomes should not be dictated by your employer or state and that reproductive autonomy is now more important than ever,” McDonald said. “Employer and government-mandated plans can and do change. A fertility insurance policy that you own and control does not.”
Lane added that the startup can provide additional inexpensive coverage to add to an existing group plan or create coverage for the 60 to 80 percent of people who have no fertility coverage through their work or health plans.
Flora Fertility is also looking to use wearables to track lifestyle factors impacting fertility like physical activity and stress, which Lane said would aid the startup’s risk profiling while allowing it to provide personalized lifestyle coaching to help women throughout their fertility journey. This approach would integrate data from wearables and medical records, allowing them to offer tailored recommendations while gleaning insights into fertility risks.
McDonald said creating a community where women can come together and understand more about their bodies and the risks of infertility is another one of the founders’ goals with Flora Fertility.
“Insurance is a really great model to address this because it’s … about people coming together to fund one another’s risk,” she added. “Why not do that around an underserved market like fertility and women’s health?”
Feature image courtesy Unsplash. Photo by Alicia Petresc.