Today, we’re announcing our 4.1 million Euro Seed raise led by Breega alongside a diverse and impact-driven community of founders, operators, fertility and healthcare experts to introduce a new generation of inclusive employee benefits into the
workplace.
🌈 Because starting a family should be a right – not a privilege
We started our journey because we observed that we’re having kids later in life but our biology is not moving in the same direction. According to the World Health Organisation, 15% of the world’s population struggles with infertility. An international scientific study revealed that women lose 90 per cent of the eggs in their ovaries before the age of 30. But infertility is not a “female problem” – it’s caused equally by men and women (30% by women, 30% by men, 20% a mix of both, 10% unknown). For an increasing number of same-sex couples looking to start a family, fertility treatments or adoption are the only options.
Given these trends, we believe that in the long run, a large percentage of the professional population will need support with reproductive treatments. However, current public health care systems do not provide adequate coverage for fertility treatment services, leaving prospective parents with sizable fertility treatment bills and/or overly complicated reimbursement requirements.
At the same time, raging talent wars for knowledge workers mean that companies today are desperately looking for ways to attract and retain the best employees, thus creating an important power shift between employers and employees. We believe that if companies want to win the war for talent they have to tackle the issues that really matter for these talents.
With Apryl, we built the first Pan-European fertility benefits platform that enables companies to support employees on their path to parenthood. These benefits include subsidies for care navigation, consultations, access to clinics and treatments such as egg/sperm freezing, IVF, adoption or surrogacy. We believe that everyone should have the same chances to start a family – no matter the age, gender, sexual orientation, relationship status or financial means.
🎯 A journey that is only possible with strong investors
Creating societal change doesn’t happen overnight and we knew we needed an investor with strong conviction. We also knew that we needed an investor that shares our commitment towards diversity, equity and inclusion. We’re so glad to have found Breega as our lead investor for this seed round. From the first meeting, throughout the due diligence process to term sheet, we felt a very strong alignment on our values and mission.
“Apryl’s solution speaks to a growing issue for both today and tomorrow’s workforce. At Breega, we strongly believe in their vision. We also believe that providing them with the right operational support - thanks to the Breega Scaling squad - will transform that vision into reality, helping the business to become a global category leader in the fertility benefits space.”
Other investors include Atlantic Labs (our pre-seed lead investor), Crista Galli Ventures, Myelin VC, Alliance For Impact Ventures (a Ventech fund) and Westtech Ventures.
“We are strong believers in the fertility space and have supported Jenny and Tobi from the very early days, and we are very excited to see them move to the next phase.”
“The current health care sector in Europe is lacking as regards fertility and family forming support. Enabling better care access through the employer benefits angle is an important step.”
And we not only have strong institutional investors but also built ourselves a diverse and impact-driven community of angel investors. We’re especially proud to announce that we won two of the leading business names in the global fertility and healthcare space: Kate Ryder, CEO of Maven Clinic and Martin Varsavsky, Founder and Chairman of Prelude Fertility & Gameto, CEO of Overture Life.
“We’ve been watching the global fertility benefits space for quite a while and given Apryl’s unique and deep understanding of the different European health systems and fertility care landscape, we believe that their platform is the only one positioned to tackle the unique and diverse needs of the European market. We’re very excited by their progress and looking forward to this next stage of scale.”
Hence, we are really proud to say that:
- 40% of our Board is female.
- 66% of our angel investors are women.
- 48% of all investors are women
Our investors are based in Berlin, London, Paris, Madrid, New York – giving us the necessary exposure to become a truly global category leader.
🎠 Join our team!
Join us on our mission to create the next generation of inclusive benefits. We’re hiring product designers, software engineers, sales and marketing experts and operations managers! If you want to give more people access to reproductive treatments and create a more equal and inclusive workplace, apply here.
