After a grueling journey through fertility treatment, Jessica Biel VanderWall and Corey VanderWall set out to reinvent the process for others.
“We didn’t know at the time if we could do anything ahead of time,” Jessica Biel VanderWall said in an interview. “But on reflection, after we finally had kids, we started to dig deeper and talk to clinicians and researchers about how this might be different.”
The result is A startup called Frame Fertility This garnered $2.8 million in seed funding in late April.
Founded in 2021, the San Francisco-based company provides research-based coaching designed to help people take early action on health issues that can affect fertility. Jessica is the CEO and her husband Corey is the Chief Product Officer. They both have experience in digital health: Jessica in marketing and customer-facing, Corey in product engineering and analytics.
Frame’s approach deviates from what is often heard that they should start trying to have a baby and then seek help if there are any problems with the pregnancy.
“Part of the reason it’s so challenging to achieve what we’re doing is that research and clinical knowledge are a little bit fragmented,” Corey said. “We spent a lot of time integrating this knowledge into a cohesive body of knowledge that can be applied to many different situations.”
To help people even before they try to conceive, Frame uses digital questionnaires and proprietary clinical algorithms to assess their health and family planning status. People are then paired with certified coaches who support them in planning and taking any next steps. The platform is not only designed for women, but also for men and the LGBTQ community.
Jessica said coaches can help Frame users with preventative care, manage underlying conditions that affect fertility or take general steps to improve their health. “We actually tried to plan ahead and were told not to worry.”
Patients come to Frame through one of two channels: physicians who provide it as part of their practice or employers who provide it as a workplace benefit.
Frame is not currently covered by insurance, Jessica said. But, she added: “Overall reimbursement is something we’re looking at right now.”
other companies that provide maternity benefits include Carrot Fertility, future family, Ovia Health and offspring.
What makes Frame different, Jessica said, is that its platform strives to accommodate women and men, as well as LGBTQ people and racial and ethnic minorities. The company is also focusing on early intervention and adapting to existing physician workflows.
Dr. Annelise Swigert, an OB/GYN physician at Southdale OB/GYN in Minneapolis, Minnesota, has been referring patients to Frame for several months and is now a clinical consultant for the company.
She sees the platform as a trusted source of information for patients who would otherwise turn to “Dr. Google.” The product also provides a way for busy doctors to engage and educate patients, especially younger adults who are already adept at using online tools .
“There’s really no other product like this,” Swigert said. “We can only try to provide our patients with information in a 15-minute period, covering everything from managing a healthy weight and dieting to understanding the entire hormonal cycle.”
The new approach has also resonated with investors.
“When it comes to treating people’s reproductive health journey as a whole, there’s nothing better than this, and the potential impact between stakeholders from patient to provider to payer to employer is enormous,” Looking at Founder and managing partner Adam Besvinick Glass Capital said in a press release. Look Glass led a $2.8 million seed round.
Frame’s other investors include Flare Capital Partners, Great Oaks Venture Capital, Healthworx and Brand Foundry Ventures, as well as several angel investors: Christine Hsu Evans, Chief Marketing and Strategy Officer, Headspace Health; Julie Cheek, Founder and CEO, Everly Health; Jonathan Hirsch, founder of Syapse; and Giovanni Colella, founder of Castlight, OODA and Brightline Health. Jessica previously worked at Castlight and Corey worked at Syapse.
Frame plans to use the seed funding to expand its workforce to support collaboration with new customers, add new features to its products and study the impact of the products. Preliminary results show that 80% of Frame users say their health has improved as a result of the platform.
“We are now conducting several clinical studies in collaboration with other players in the field, particularly academic medical systems, to demonstrate the results of our product,” Jessica said.
Photo: Iryna Shkrabaliuk, Getty Images
