Eli Health is the healthtech company behind Hormometer, the first-of-its-kind saliva-based hormone monitoring system that uses a smartphone-enabled test to deliver near real-time hormone insights for wellness and overall health. Pulse 2.0 interviewed Eli Health co-founder and CEO Marina Pavlovic Rivas to gain a deeper understanding of the company.
Marina Pavlovic Rivas’ Background
Could you tell me more about your background? Rivas said:
“I’m the cofounder and CEO of Eli Health. As a data scientist and entrepreneur, I have always believed information is power—especially when personal, actionable, and scalable enough to impact millions of people. After the acquisition of my first AI company, my own health journey led to a simple yet profound insight: the essential data I needed didn’t yet exist. Eli was created to fill this gap.”
Formation Of The Company
How did the idea for the company come together? Rivas shared:
“As mentioned I have always believed that information is power and in the importance of making it actionable and scalable. After going through a health journey of my own, I realized the gap in accessing critical data wasn’t unique. Over 60% of adults will experience significant hormone dysregulation in their lifetime. Hormones govern how we feel, function, perform, and age—but they remain invisible in everyday life, and most people don’t even realize how central they are to daily health. When issues do get addressed, it’s often years after symptoms begin—if they’re addressed at all.”
“Cortisol, for example, is the body’s master signal for energy, stress, and recovery. It fluctuates by the hour, with dysregulation affecting 1 in 3 adults. Yet traditional lab tests offer only static snapshots—slow, expensive, and fail to capture the larger picture. Eli Health was born to solve this problem, to make real-time testing and access to a longitudinal data set possible.”
“Together with my co-founder Thomas Cortina, I set out to build what the world was missing: a real-time interface to the human body. After nearly six years of R&D across biochemistry, hardware, and AI, Eli launched Hormometer—the first instant hormone monitoring system that delivers results from saliva to your phone in minutes. What was once impossible is now routine: real-time biological data is as easy as brushing your teeth or tracking your steps.”
Favorite Memory
What has been your favorite memory working for the company so far? Rivas reflected:
“One of my favorite memories was the moment we tested our own hormones in real-time—after years of R&D and thousands of iterations—and realized we were the first in history to access that kind of data. Even more powerful was witnessing our first users experience the same breakthrough. It felt like we had cracked open a new layer of human understanding.”
Core Products
What are the company’s core products and features? Rivas explained:
“Eli Health’s core product is Hormometer, the world’s first instant hormone test. It’s a real-time interface to the human body—built to make hormone monitoring as simple and routine as brushing your teeth.”
“Here’s how it works:
– Saliva-based test
No lab. No shipping. Just a small saliva sample, collected in seconds and analyzed instantly.
– Microfluidic testing platform
A custom-built, patent-pending system that processes hormones on the spot using advanced microfluidics.
– AI-powered app
Results appear in minutes on the Eli app, alongside personal hormone trends and longitudinal tracking.
– Actionable recommendations
The app provides context and guidance—what your levels mean, how they’re trending, and how you can adjust based on your goals.
– Longitudinal data and pattern recognition
Hormone data is tracked over time to uncover patterns, surface insights, and support more informed daily and long-term health decisions.
After more than five years of R&D—including 12+ patent-pending innovations across biochemistry, hardware, AI, and manufacturing—Hormometer has achieved full commercial launch. It’s third-party validated, FDA registered, and produced in-house to ensure quality and scale.”
Challenges Faced
Have you faced any challenges in your sector of work recently? Rivas acknowledged:
“One of the biggest challenges has been building entirely new infrastructure in a space where no blueprint existed. We weren’t just improving on existing hormone testing—we were inventing a new way to do it, in real-time, anywhere, using saliva. That required overcoming scientific, technical, regulatory, manufacturing, and funding hurdles simultaneously. What helped us get through it was assembling a rare, multidisciplinary team and staying relentlessly focused on the problem, even when conventional wisdom said it couldn’t be done.”
Evolution Of The Company’s Technology
How has the company’s technology evolved since launching? Rivas noted:
“The technology has evolved significantly since it first reached users. The most impactful change has been replacing the original electronic reader—a physical device that paired with the test—with the smartphone’s camera, powered by advanced computer vision algorithms.”
Significant Milestones
What have been some of the company’s most significant milestones? Rivas cited:
- IP portfolio of a dozen inventions, developed over 6 years of R&D.
- Third-party validations showing accuracy over 90% and completion of FDA registration.
- In 2025, Eli Health was awarded the CES’s prestigious “Best of Innovation in Digital Health” award, along with the Red Dot Award for design concept, HLTH Rising Star award for digital health, Fast Company’s Best Health and Wellness Design of 2025, Athletech’s Startups to Watch Award, and other recognitions.
- We also announced the close of our $12 million Series A raise last year, led by BDC Capital’s Thrive Venture Fund. The milestone marked the largest funding ever raised by a women’s health-focused company in Canadian history. The company has since expanded to hormonal health for all genders.
- Our cortisol beta product went live in September 2025, after a successful beta phase with a waitlist of thousands of users. We will launch progesterone and testosterone testing later in Q1 2026, which will be a huge moment for us.
Customer Success Stories
Can you share any specific customer success stories? Rivas highlighted:
“Recently, we’ve had athletes use the product to measure their cortisol instantly during practices, game days, and recovery days. This enabled them to see this data instantly for the first time and led to immediate changes in how they train and recover.”
Total Addressable Market
What total addressable market (TAM) size is the company pursuing? Rivas assessed:
“The hormonal health market is massive and still untapped. Consumer appetite for health data is consistently growing, and hormones are poised to become the next key health metric. The market size for fertility is $17 billion, for hormonal conditions $11 billion, for general health $27 billion, and for perimenopause $56 billion. With those metrics in mind, we know that Eli is poised to be part of the trends that will inevitably shape the world, including the shift in health and wellness toward preventative and personalized approaches, which will require hormonal data at scale. Our future expansion plans include further differentiation into women’s and men’s health, contraception, and more.”
Differentiation From The Competition
What differentiates the company from its competition? Rivas affirmed:
“Hormometer is the world’s first instant hormone monitoring system. This is a direct consequence of Eli Health having invented a proprietary technology that uses saliva for anytime, anywhere hormone testing. Saliva is a biofluid that, until Eli Health, could only be processed in a lab—making it virtually impossible to use it for instant and frequent hormone testing.”
“Eli Health has 12+ patent-pending innovations across biochemistry, hardware, software, AI, and endocrinology.”
“Other hormone tests require either physically going to a lab or shipping a sample to a lab. Some urine tests are available at home for fertility. Eli is the first anytime, anywhere test for overall health.”
Future Company Goals
What are some of the company’s future goals? Rivas concluded:
“Waitlists are currently open for progesterone and testosterone, the next two hormones to launch in beta on the platform early this year. Our intention is to eventually launch tracking for other key hormones as well.”
