Hormones play a big role in when and how easily a woman can get pregnant, but there's a lack of research and resources in this area – something Mila wants to change.
Mira is a palm-sized, at-home hormone testing device that women use to test hormone levels in their urine. Mira's companion app deciphers the test results and finds patterns, helping women better plan the right time to try to conceive or know when to consult a doctor about potential issues.
Mira co-founder and CEO Sylvia Kang said on a recent episode of TechCrunch's podcast “Found” that she was inspired to start the company because she believed there had to be a better way for women to plan for pregnancy beyond ovulation tests and expensive IVF treatments. Kang became even more convinced when she realized how little the medical industry knew about the space.
“We had lots of Fitbit-like activity trackers measuring general health, we'd already put a man on the moon, but here we were in the 21st century and our understanding of female hormone tracking and fertility was still really, really lacking,” Kang said.
Kang said that when he launched Mira in 2017, two trends were peaking – building Internet of Things (IoT) devices and manufacturing consumer products – so he decided to make it a home testing device.
When she first started the service, many investors had a hard time understanding it. Kang said it's understandable if an investor has experienced fertility issues themselves or through a partner, but for those who haven't, the issue is hard to grasp.
“You know, consumers are becoming educated,” Kang said of women understanding their hormone cycles. “We can understand the data. Just like you go to the doctor, you should own your test results. You should understand what's going on so you can take control of your body. That was the goal and kind of the driving force behind this effort.”
Kang said Mira's future is about more than just being an IoT consumer device company: The company tracks and anonymizes every user's results, meaning it's building a database of information on women's health that could fill the data void that inspired the company.
“This is really going to take women's health to a new level,” Kang says. “It's not just something that consumers can record at home and say, it's nice to know. It's not just something that's nice to know. It's something that you have to have and you have to understand. So we're actively working on that.”