Katie Adams , 2025-04-14 23:34:00
Cofertility, a Los Angeles-based startup aimed at making family-building more equitable and accessible, closed a $7.25 million Series A funding round this month. The financing round — which brings Cofertility’s total funding to date to $16 million — was led by Next Ventures and Offline Ventures.
The company launched in 2022 to make egg freezing more affordable by tying it to egg donation. Cofertility offers women two programs: Keep and Split. With Keep, women can pay to freeze their eggs and store them all for their own later use. The Split program allows women to freeze their eggs for free when they give half to a family who can’t otherwise conceive.
By bringing egg donation and egg freezing together at scale, Cofertility is addressing several key issues in fertility, said CEO Lauren Makler — a former Uber exec who founded the company’s health division in 2017.
First, one of the most significant issues in the fertility industry is the exclusionary costs associated with egg freezing — which typically run between $12,000 and $20,000, she noted.
“This makes it simply out of reach for most women, especially considering the best time to freeze your eggs is often when we can least afford it and when we’re least likely to be thinking about it,” Makler explained.
There is also stigma around egg donation — and that is largely rooted in the cash compensation model, she added.
This stigma not only prevents women from pursuing something they may genuinely want (helping another family grow), but it also limits options for intended parents. This conundrum disproportionately impacts the LGBTQ community, for whom egg donation is often essential to building a family, Makler pointed out.
She also noted that there is a substantial lack of ethnic diversity amongst donors, which leaves prospective parents without adequate options for growing a family that reflects their background. More than half of Cofertility’s donors identify as women of color.
“Cofertility exists to change all of this. Our integrated approach makes fertility preservation more accessible, tackles the lack of racial and socioeconomic diversity in egg donation, and makes the process less transactional — attracting women who might not have considered it otherwise,” she declared.
The startups’ platform and egg donor database streamline the entire egg donation process — from recruitment to matching to cycle coordination, Makler said.
Intended parents can browse donor profiles, which offer insights into each donor’s personality and motivations, along with photos and videos.
“We wanted a platform that would compliment our human-centered approach and provide education, support and personalized guidance along the way. It was created to feel as personal, intimate and authentic to the person as growing your family should be,” Makler remarked.
Once intended parents are matched with a donor, they all receive access to personalized dashboards where they can track exactly where they are in the process, she added.
Cofetility is not disclosing its total number of users, but Makler said the company has helped “thousands” of members on their family-building journeys. She also noted that the startup has seen an 80% year-over-year increase in matches between prospective parents and donors.
While there are a small number of clinics around the world that have egg sharing offerings, Makler declared that no other company is pulling it off at scale.
“We’ve reimagined egg donation and egg freezing as part of a single ecosystem, not siloed services. We’re not just another egg donor agency or fertility clinic. We’re a platform that empowers women to take control of their reproductive futures while also helping intended parents grow their families — all with transparency and empathy during every part of the journey,” she explained.
Photo: Flicker user Nils Soderman