Your journey to parenthood begins with an app, apparently.
Glow — the super-hyped get-pregnant-now app — announced a $6 million funding round today, the same day it hit the app store. The app comes from PayPal cofounder Max Levchin’s company Upward Labs.
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Via a very high-tech big data approach to ovulation, menstrual cycles, body temperatures, sexual activity, weight, stress, and yes, cervical mucus (CM) consistency, Glow aims to put science to work in helping you make the magic of new life happen. As long as you don’t mind answering the app’s questions, such as whether you’ve performed your morning CM check — or asking your spouse to do it for you.
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The app provides a “convenient calendar view” to see your next fertile window and a five-day forecast showing your chances of getting pregnant on any given day. And of course, you can invite your partner to share in the app-ified journey of procreation.
The big innovation, and what’s actually interesting about Glow, is that women who are having trouble conceiving can join a crowdfunding effort called the “Glow Fund,” in which they deposit $50/month for 10 months. As soon as they become pregnant, they stop contributing. If they don’t conceive, the Glow Fund helps finance fertility treatments. Upward Labs calls it the “world’s only fertility funding community.”
“Glow and Glow First are the most advanced, elegant, and data-driven way to start a family on your own terms,” the company says in its very Silly Valley app store description.
Upward Labs has raised $6 million from investors like Andreessen Horowitz, Founders Fund, and Yuri Milner. And Levchin has kickstarted the Glow Fund with $1 million of his own money.
Fertility, Levchin has said, is “an information problem.” Glow is a modern solution to that ancient problem. But it will have some competition.
Competitor Clue, based in Berlin, is also due to launch soon.
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