Aster (a predictive and preventative pregnancy care platform for patients and providers) announced the company’s first funding round of $2.4 million, led by Cake Ventures in partnership with Cornerstone VC and additional participation from Barclays Black Formation Investments (managed by Zeal Capital Partners), Octopus (FCF), Blueprint, Everywhere and select angel investors.
The new funding round will scale operations quickly, move the company from private pilot to availability nationwide for patients and providers, and hire key operational roles. When Aster’s vision is fully realized, it will be the country’s most comprehensive, vertically integrated management platform for pre- and post-natal care.
Fifi Kara, Dr. Lailah Kara-Newton, and Andrew Q. Tran launched Aster. And the core team is composed of physicians, engineers, policy advisors, and product leaders. Aster was created in response to a very personal experience of cofounder Dr. Lailah, who gave birth to her son Eesa 4 years ago. She had undiagnosed preeclampsia, which led to him being born flat and requiring resuscitation. If she had the care Aster provided, many of their complications could have been addressed much sooner.
Aster aims to improve the patient experience through better access, monitoring, and clinical guidance. And this can be achieved through predictive and preventive healthcare practices powered with advanced technology.
For patients, Aster has three core offerings in the Aster app (full release Q2 2024):
- Communications – Gives patients the ability to easily communicate with their care team throughout their pregnancy journey, both during pregnancy and after. This is done through asynchronous messaging and telehealth video visits.
- Remote Patient Monitoring – This enables patients to monitor and track their health remotely with their own Bluetooth device and share this data with their provider in real time. Aster facilitates and enables the collection of blood pressure, heart rate, blood glucose, and urinalysis testing.
- Resources – Provides patients with a greater understanding of their healthcare journey through educational content and guides delivered directly from their care providers, keeping care management consistent and less fragmented.
For providers, Aster created a vertical software that offers:
- Cutting-edge technology – Enhanced clinical admin management software streamlines core workflows that consume providers’ time, e.g., scheduling, note-taking, charting, and intake.
- Remote patient monitoring – Supports the implementation of preventative and predictive patient monitoring technology, telehealth, and network consolidation.
- Expand their practice – Enables providers to deliver best-in-class care for their patients, which ultimately drives business growth.
Aster was launched in June 2023 and has started focusing on midwifery-led care, birth centers, and nurse practitioner-led care, with a plan to serve OB/GYN providers soon after. The company has 30 clinics signed up to use Aster and is currently onboarding providers and patients. They are active in several U.S. States, including California and Texas. By the end of this year, Aster expects to work with more than one hundred providers, serving approximately 20,000 patients.
The providers from the private pilot period include practitioners like Oakland Village Midwifery in California, Bloom Maternal Health in Texas, The Birthing Place in New York, In Bloom Midwifery in California, and Strength in You OB/GYN in Maryland. And the platform Aster is building is especially crucial to providers serving patients in remote areas. The company is excited to be onboarding clinics in Alaska, Alabama, Ohio, and more that have recently signed up for the upcoming Beta program.
KEY QUOTES:
“We’re at a pivotal moment in maternal health and more broadly, women’s health. Pregnancy complications cost the U.S. $54 billion per year and 80% are avoidable. Our company was founded because of a personal experience – my sister and nephew had an incredibly scary birth – and we were all deeply inspired to change what could, and should have been prevented for future mothers.”
– FifI Kara, Co-founder and CEO of Aster
“I invest in founders who want to deliver innovation to large, legacy industries like healthcare, and solve the biggest problems for future generations. The state of maternal health in the United States is disturbing and urgent. With the highest maternal mortality rate among high-income countries, it is unacceptable that pregnancy for American women can still feel like a dangerous undertaking, and the data shows that the situation is even worse for Black women. The Aster team are the right founders to tackle this important problem through technology and personal experience.”
– Monique Woodard, Cake Ventures
“As maternal health providers we are always looking to improve our client’s experiences and provide better outcomes and experiences for expectant mothers and their babies. We have been waiting for a solution like Aster – it supports our clinical team’s workflow tremendously so we can give our clients the world class care we strive for and they deserve.”
– Myla Flores, founder of The Birthing Place in Bronx, NY
