- Natalist, a company founded by Halle Tecco, announced it raised $5 million in funding from a group of prominent investors
During the summer of 2010 between the first and second years of Harvard Business School, Halle Tecco covered health and medical apps for the iPhone and iPad as a business development manager for Apple’s iOS App Store.
While working for that division at Apple, Tecco had realized that applications that were submitted to the lifestyle and gaming categories were more advanced and reliable. But the healthcare apps lacked accuracy and quality.
Inspired by this problem, Tecco had co-founded Rock Health — which is an investment fund that invested in digital health startups. The LPs in this fund included Mayo Clinic and Kaiser Permanente. And about a year ago, Tecco launched a fertility product company called Natalist.
Natalist offers a packaged called the “Get Pregnant Bundle” for $90. This bundle includes 7 ovulation tests, 3 pregnancy tests, and two separate one-month supply of vitamins, according to Crunchbase.
“There’s a ton of young science out there,” said Tecco via Crunchbase. “There’s a ton of products that have no medical evidence whatsoever, or they have evidence that they do the opposite of work. And people are still purchasing those products.”
And recently Natalist raised $5 million in funding from Rock Health, Cowboy Ventures, Collaborative Fund, Fuel Capital, xFund, Evidation Health cofounder and president Christine Lemke, Stitch Fix founder and CEO Katrina Lake, Everylwell CEO Julia Taylor Cheek, Kleiner Perkins partner John Doerr, Ensemble Labs partner Malay Gandhi, Red Swan Ventures general partner David Vivero, and Goldman Sachs partner R. Martin Chavez.
Tecco told Crunchbase that she considers Natalist’s two main competitors First Response (at-home pregnancy test kits) and ClearBlue (ovulation and pregnancy tests).
And the results for Natalist has been successful. Ever since Natalist launched a few weeks ago, five customers sent pictures with positive birth tests.
Natalist also recently signed a deal with Benefitfocus, a publicly-traded company that has about 1,500 employees. As part of the deal, Natalist’s products will be offered half off for employees.
