Admiralty Capital led the round, which comes just 16 months after Ovum’s $1.7m pre-seed fundraise. The AI-driven women’s health platform has been downloaded 20,000 times in less than a year and facilitated more than 110,000 conversations.
When reproductive biology graduate Dr Heffernan-Marks founded Ovum five years ago, she set out to develop an AI-health tool specifically for women.
“Women leave appointments unheard because the system (the data, clinical reasoning, and care pathways) was built without women at its centre. Most AI health tools repeat that mistake: women aren’t designed in, they’re retrofitted onto a generic model which is commercial first, impact second.”
Half a decade on, an impressive list of funders has lined up behind her.
“The most compelling companies are often built around problems society has learned to tolerate but should never have accepted,” says Amanda Andriano, a founding partner at Admiralty Capital Group, which is leading the $4 million seed raise announced this week.
“The gender health gap is one of those problems. Ovum combines mission, market timing and technical capability with an exceptional founder uniquely positioned to lead this movement, and we believe that creates the foundation for a company of global significance,” says Andriano.
Gold Coast-based Admiralty was joined in the raise by Antler, Giant Leap, LaunchVic, Foggy Valley Aotearoa, Aviron Investments, and the Brisbane Angels consortium.
Just 16 months on from the pre-seed raise, Ovum has shown solid traction, partnering with Medibank, Sweat, Fernwood Fitness, the Australian Red Cross, and Menopause Friendly Australia. The app has been downloaded 20,000 times.
“Our human-in-the-loop training system, evaluation technology and growing dataset of over 60,000 datapoints from women 15-84 are helping us create an AI that supports a woman across her entire lifespan, whatever her health need is,” says Heffernan-Marks.
“In nine months, women have had 113,000 conversations with Ovum, and this raise lets us build the infrastructure to take it to millions more across new markets.”
Rather than imagining Ovum as a ‘chatbot’, Heffernan-Marks sees the company as an AI-driven ecosystem that connects users to digital pharmacies, home pathology testing, and telehealth services.
The $4m seed raise will enable the company to grow the team and to further facilitate research into women’s health. Heffernan-Marks is a PhD candidate at UNSW spearheading a women’s health dataset in conjunction with The George Institute for Global Health.
“I’ve sat on both sides of the desk, as a patient and as a doctor, and that’s why this mission matters so much to me.”
Ariella Heffernan-Marks
She notes that maintaining user confidentiality is a fundamental tenet of the encrypted platform and that it is designed to adhere to GDPR and other privacy regulations. While 83 per cent of users have opted in to share anonymised data, it is not mandatory.
“Ovum users [can] contribute to research that improves understanding, treatment, and care for women everywhere,” says Heffernan-Marks.
“For too long, women have had to navigate healthcare systems that were not designed around their lived experiences or backed by sufficient female health data. Ovum exists to help women better understand their bodies, advocate for themselves with confidence, and contribute to research that improves care for future generations.”
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