Why we invested: Bea Fertility

We always say that technology will define the future winners and losers of the global economy. But the future of fertility has the capacity to completely reconfigure the balance of power, and how we organise our future societies. It is the driving force behind our growth of civilization, it underpins humanity's relentless pursuit of building a better world for future generations.

Conversations around fertility are knotty. Only in recent history have cultures started to detach social status from the ability to conceive. We are far from reaching a global consensus on the means by which people can choose to procreate or not. We also live in a time where our population is putting unprecedented pressure on our natural resources (one new child can add over 10,000 tons of CO2 to the planet over their lifetime), but where many ageing nations cannot be supported by a smaller working population.

At 7percent, we are optimistic on humanity’s ability to solve the problems of population pressure on our planet. We believe that the choice to have or not have children should be exactly that – a choice.

While tumbling fertility rates can reflect the best of humanity’s progress – greater access to contraception, as well as education, employment, and agency for women –- it also represents the inescapable fact that our ability to have children (whether we want them or not) is falling. Hormonal imbalances are on the rise, male sperm counts are declining, and the young people in society are having less sex than ever before. Around 17.5% of the world’s adult population now experience some level of infertility. 

So far, society's response to this has been channelled into a single solution: opening more clinics for In Vitro Fertilization (IVF), largely viewed as the gold standard for fertility treatment. But at a high cost, and with varying healthcare infrastructure and societal standards, 98.7% of women across the world are unable to access it. For those that do, challenges remain with egg collection, side effects, unintended multiple-births, and social stigma. This arduous patient experience comes at a time where demand is soaring. In the UK, there has been an 11-fold increase in egg-freezing cycles over the past 10 years, while the number of IVF cycles has increased by over 300%. 

We are excited to be backing Tess and Bea Fertility, as they aim to create safe, effective, and affordable ways to attain parenthood for anyone that seeks it. 

The company has developed a hormone-free, intracervical insemination (ICI) applicator, which takes IVF-level fertility treatment out of the clinic, and allows consumers to maximise their chances of pregnancy at home, for less than 1/10th of the cost. 

The use of Bea’s cervical cap, which inserts sperm into the cervix, creates a 3.25x concentration of sperm near the uterus, and has so far achieved a 39.28% pregnancy rate across 3 treatment cycles – surpassing the chance of success of a first attempt of IVF (20%-35%). The device is readily accessible on the market (here) and has already resulted in at least 29 live births and counting as of June 2024.

Although ICI is not a novel concept, having been initially trialled in the 1970s. However, despite its efficacy, it was replaced by higher-margin IVF and IUI methods of fertilisation in clinical settings. 

Bea’s approach to the re-birth of ICI leverages today’s emerging era of data, remote healthcare, social acceptance around fertility, and rapid growth in both consumer-led healthtech and fertility products. Along with the sales of its device, Bea’s product offering is paired clinical support, lifestyle intervention, diagnostics, and ovulation stimulation – bolstering the margins of their business model.

Vastly underserved by technology and currently serviced through clinical procedures, the fertility market encompasses 25 million users in the US alone – presenting a $75 billion addressable market for Bea Fertility. The company is explicitly targeting the primary fertility care market – at-home, at GPs and at OBGYNs – sitting between timed intercourse approaches and secondary fertility care approaches like IVF.