Two Stanford graduates have raised $11 million to build a non-invasive, wearable device that tracks hormones

Stanford graduates Jenny Dhawan and Abhinav Agarwal want to solve two tough problems: create a wearable device that works well and measures hormones to help women better understand their health.

The couple is building a startup called Clair Health that tracks signs of inflammation and bloating, energy levels, and classifies cycle phase to give insight into cycle irregularities and perimenopause, as well as hormonal fluctuations, and how to navigate those changes.

The company has raised $11.6 million in a funding round led by Khosla Ventures, with participation from a16z speedrun startup accelerator program, Brydge Club, Treehub, Cartan Capital, AGI House, Insiders VC, Anne Wojcicki, and Stephanie Coleman.

The startup said that in order to collect more user-specific data, it uses the voice setting to understand their health signs. Furthermore, the company claims to have trained its AI to analyze voice-based vital signs and determine what stage a user is in after just a few minutes of conversation.

“What we found is that in women’s health and with the current state of apps, women are not able to report a large amount of symptoms because the apps are designed for specific symptoms only. With our audio collection, we are giving our users a way to communicate their own problems in their own way,” Duan said.

Through the wearable device, Clair Health said it is able to determine why hormones are changing and how the body is responding to those changes by evaluating biomarkers captured by its sensors. It also constantly monitors changes during the four phases of the menstrual cycle and does not depend only on the day of menstruation. Through these signs, the app displays information about the pace of aging, inflammation, swelling, and the rate of perceived exertion.

Clair Health also wants to help women seeking menopausal and perimenopausal care by providing more data to share with healthcare providers, allowing them to get better support rather than verbally recounting their symptoms.

Duane said she became interested in women’s health while working at a nonprofit in Portland, Oregon, during school. Later, she took a class at Stanford University that focused on women’s health and nonprofits, during which time she met Agarwal.

The startup says that typical health trackers like the Apple Watch or Pixel Watch rely on sensors like gyroscope, optical sensor/PPG, and temperature sensor, which are not sufficient to track hormonal health. The Clair Health device contains 10 biosensors, including a new biomagnetic sensor for hormonal insights.

“Until today, there has been no single device, whether surgical or non-invasive, that can capture insights into hormones in real time and get to the source of the problem. We didn’t start out thinking about building a specific piece of hardware. We just wanted to track hormones on an ongoing basis,” Duan told TechCrunch.

The company said it is building its own model based on different biomarkers of women’s health, with data partnerships with access to several million electronic health records and longitudinal health data. Through its data partnerships, it wants to generate insights on various issues, including endometriosis, PMS (premenstrual dysphoric disorder), perimenopause, and more.

The startup is currently testing its devices with a closed group of beta users and plans to ship units in November priced at $369 combined with a monthly subscription of $9.99. Users can place pre-orders for the device now.

Clair Health solves the problem of giving women actionable insight into their hormonal health, said Mary Minow, an investor in Treehub, a residence adjacent to Stanford University and backed by the AI ​​Health Fund.

“Users want a product that does what it says it will do. Measuring hormonal health today is still outdated — my premenopausal friends still get blood drawn to understand the effectiveness of hormonal treatments. Out of the gate, Clear aims to offer a product that sheds light on what previously required a blood draw,” Minow told TechCrunch via email.

Startups are trying several approaches to measuring hormone health. For example, Level Zero Health focuses on continuous tracking Through devices such as glucose monitoringwhile Hormones Based on home tests. Then there are apps like Health of ourselves Which relies on artificial intelligence to provide insights based on manual recording done by users.