The startup reimagining the egg-freezing business

The fertility business touches ~100k US births every year.

It’s not without its issues, though. Egg freezing is most effective when completed under age 30, but younger women are less likely to be able to afford the costly process. Once a woman can afford to freeze her eggs, it’s sometimes too late.

Plus, some women dealing with infertility or other health issues aren’t able to freeze their eggs at all and need a donor.

That’s where Cofertility comes in 

The Los Angeles-based startup is looking to tackle the common obstacles of egg freezing with a new kind of model, per Forbes.

• Cofertility lets women freeze their eggs and store them for up to 10 years for free if they agree to donate half of those retrieved.
• The company doesn’t own any IVF clinics; instead, it works with them to create a database of 150-200 egg donors for aspiring parents to sort through.
• Donors can opt to remain anonymous to potential parents.
• While the price is not small — six eggs cost $21k and 12 cost $37.2k — the fees cover the donor’s harvesting procedure and 10 years of egg storage, legal contracts, and eggs from a second donor should the first not produce a baby.

Think those numbers sound steep? Egg donation is just a fraction of the ~$8B US fertility industry.

More equitable eggs 

Cofertility’s process is different from the traditional model, which compensates donors for their eggs — and which is often tiered based on donor characteristics (if they are Ivy League-educated, for example).

As a solution, Cofertility doesn’t base prices on donor attributes, and removes the direct exchange of compensation.

“The compensation piece is actually very off-putting to a lot of women,” founder Lauren Makler told The Hustle. “In turn, intended parents who need a donor have fewer options.”