Millie Raises $12M to Advance Maternal Healthcare

Tech maternity clinic Millie has raised $12 million in Sequence A funding to develop its choices and footprint, the startup introduced Thursday.

San Francisco-based Millie affords miscarriage administration, lactation assist, psychological well being counseling, prenatal schooling, postpartum assist teams and gynecological care. It has a collaborative care mannequin that features midwives, doulas and physicians, and care is supplied nearly by way of its app and in bodily clinics (although its care is presently restricted to these in California). The corporate additionally companions with well being techniques and accepts each industrial well being plans and Medicaid.

Millie’s Sequence A spherical was co-led by TMV and Foreground Capital and included participation from Pivotal Ventures, March of Dimes Innovation Fund, Ingeborg Investments, BBG Ventures, Joyance, LearnStart, Amboy Avenue Ventures, Mom Ventures, Coyote Ventures and Chai Ventures.

“We imagine Millie has constructed the best mannequin to drive higher outcomes: midwifery-led, powered by each clinician and patient-facing expertise, in partnership with well being techniques and payers. Not solely is that this transformative for maternal well being however there’s a enormous upside potential as Millie builds a longitudinal relationship past the maternity episode,” stated Emma Silverman, companion at TMV, in an announcement.

The financing will assist Millie open extra areas and companion with extra well being techniques in California (although it plans to develop outdoors of California sooner or later). The corporate can also be increasing choices to assist the broader reproductive well being journey, akin to fertility assessments, stated Anu Sharma, founder and CEO of Millie.

“We concentrate on maternity care, and sure, that’s what we do rather well and wish to be well-known for,” she stated in an interview. “However we view ourselves actually, I might say, as a girls’s well being firm for the reproductive years.”

Sharma began the corporate as a consequence of her personal challenges inside the maternal healthcare system. Shortly after returning residence following the beginning of her daughter, Sharma needed to diagnose herself with postpartum preeclampsia.

“I put myself in an Uber, leaving my daughter at residence with my husband, went again to the emergency room and introduced on the verge of a stroke and fairly actually, ended up saving my very own life,” she stated. “It was simply a type of mind-blowing moments. Right here I’m, any individual who’s fairly healthcare literate, well-resourced, getting care in probably the greatest hospitals within the nation, not missing insurance coverage. I even had a doula. Nonetheless, I nearly died.”

Sharma isn’t the one one who has struggled with the damaged system. Greater than 35% of counties are maternity care deserts, in response to March of Dimes. The U.S. has the very best price of maternal deaths than some other high-income nation. A number of different startups have emerged to deal with this challenge as properly, together with Pomelo Care and Mae.

Finally, Sharma stated she goals to “have extra individuals really feel properly supported as they make this journey.”

Photograph: StockFinland, Getty Pictures