Montréal-based healthtech startup Eli, which provides solutions for saliva-based hormone testing, has raised $5 million CAD in all-primary seed funding.
The convertible note round closed in February and was led by Muse Capita. It also saw participation from new investors RH Capital, Cake Ventures, Telus Pollinator Fund for Good, Garage Capital, and Leva Capital, as well as returning investors Real Ventures, Panache, Vectr, and pan-Canadian consortium Medteq.
“We see this technology as the missing bridge between the biological and the digital.”
Founded in 2019 by Marina Pavlovic Rivas (CEO) and Thomas Cortina (CTO), Eli aims to improve people’s health by continuously monitoring hormones in saliva. The standard at-home testing kits for hormones that are currently on the market typically involve purchasing a urine test, which Rivas claims are built to be used for a short period of time, and only estimate the moment of ovulation.
Eli aims to make measuring hormones easier by following three steps: collect a tiny amount of saliva, insert the test in Eli’s palm-sized reader, and get results in minutes on the accompanying mobile app. The startup said it went through years of research and development to make continuous monitoring possible by measuring miniscule amounts of hormones in saliva while keeping the product affordable for long-term use at home.
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“We see this technology as the missing bridge between the biological and the digital,” said Rivas. “It will allow us to build a large-scale longitudinal dataset of daily hormone levels for the first time in history. Filling this major data gap will help medical and research communities address previously unaddressable needs.”
With this new funding, Eli said it plans to finalize product development as well as move through clinical validation and regulatory approvals leading to its launch.
According to Eli, it has raised $9 million CAD in total funding to date, which includes a $1.9 million CAD pre-seed round in 2020. Eli also secured prior investments from Techstars and Real Ventures through Techstars’ Montreal AI accelerator.
Featured image courtesy Eli.