It took more than a year for Corey van der Wal to receive a proper fertility evaluation. That delay, coupled with the maze of specialists, insurance calls, and unanswered questions he and his wife Jessica navigated, became the blueprint for their startup.
Frame, the San Francisco company the couple founded, announced in April 2022 it has raised $2.8 million in seed funding led by Looking Glass Capital. The round drew participation from Flare Capital Partners, Great Oaks Venture Capital, Healthworx, and Brand Foundry Ventures, along with a cluster of health-tech veterans who've built their own companies in the space.
The pitch is straightforward: catch fertility issues before couples spend years trying to conceive on their own. Frame's platform uses an AI-driven assessment to flag risk factors like undiagnosed endometriosis or polycystic ovary syndrome, then connects patients with board-certified coaches and clinicians for ongoing support. The service integrates directly into OB/GYN and primary-care practices, positioning itself as a preventive layer rather than a last-resort option.
Jessica Bell van der Wal, who serves as CEO, came to the problem with a resume that spans Castlight Health, Nike, Deloitte Consulting, and Genentech, plus an MBA from Harvard Business School. Corey previously led mobile product development at athenahealth and worked in analytics at Syapse. Both had encountered the healthcare system's friction points professionally. Experiencing them personally was different.
The company has assembled partnerships with a web of specialized providers: Oova handles ovulation tracking, Fellow manages male fertility testing, Everlywell runs diagnostic labs, and Sunfish helps with surrogacy and adoption financing. Territory Foods covers nutrition guidance. It's an ecosystem approach that reflects how fragmented fertility care has become.
In its early data from 2022, Frame reported that 88% of users saw health improvements, while 90% felt more confident navigating their care. Perhaps more telling: 82% uncovered previously unknown risk factors, suggesting that many people enter the fertility journey with medical blind spots they don't realize exist.
OpenX, an advertising technology company, signed on as an early customer. "We were eager to roll out Frame because it's about a better outcome for our employees and their families," said Shannon Espinola, the company's VP of global HR. Employer adoption matters here; fertility benefits have shifted from niche perk to mainstream expectation. Forty-two percent of U.S. organizations offered some form of fertility coverage as of 2024, a sharp climb from negligible levels a decade ago, according to the International Foundation of Employee Benefit Plans.
The funding round pulled in checks from operators with their own battle scars in digital health. Christine Hsu Evans of Headspace Health participated, as did Julia Cheek of Everlywell, Giovanni Colella of Castlight and Brightline, and Jonathan Hirsch of Syapse. Dealroom data also lists City Light Capital, Ad Astra Ventures, Unpopular Ventures, and angel investor Austin Ogilvie among the backers.
"There is nothing else like it out there," said Adam Besvinick, founder and managing partner at Looking Glass Capital, though Frame enters a crowded field. The startup will compete with established players including Progyny, which went public in 2019, and Maven Clinic, which raised a $125 million Series F last June. Carrot, Kindbody, WINFertility, Future Family, and Ovia Health also vie for employer contracts in the space.
What distinguishes Frame, at least in theory, is timing. Most fertility platforms address the problem after diagnosis. Frame is betting that earlier intervention—before couples rack up months of failed attempts and mounting anxiety—will produce better outcomes and lower costs. Whether employers and health systems buy that thesis at scale remains to be seen.
The company plans to deploy the fresh capital toward scaling partnerships with health systems and expanding its clinical team. Jessica Bell van der Wal noted "significant momentum in the market" in a statement, though she didn't specify customer numbers or revenue targets. For now, Frame is placing its chips on a familiar startup wager: that fixing a broken experience you've lived through yourself gives you an edge the incumbents lack.
