UK start-up Level Zero Health has raised $5.5m (£4.4m) in a pre-seed funding round, the largest ever secured by female founders in Europe.
The funding, led by European venture capital firm redalpine, will accelerate its mission to revolutionise hormone tracking.
It will help with its development of the world’s first remote and continuous hormone monitoring device, powered by first of a kind DNA-based sensors.
The company was founded just a little over a year ago by ex-Palantir tech lead Ula Rustamova, and Irene Jia, a medical device expert from Philips.
This milestone has set a new benchmark for female-led startups in Europe, which is where 70 per cent of the firm’s investment came from.
The company’s innovation is based around a noninvasive wearable patch that attaches to the user’s arm, providing them with real-time monitoring of their key hormones.
Unlike traditional blood tests that only capture single data points, Level Zero Health’s technology constantly measures hormone levels.
This has wide reaching implications, ranging from fertility treatments and menopause management to stress monitoring.
Its data-based sensors have shown 98 per cent accuracy across the human clinical range, exceeding wider industry standards.
Chief executive Ula Rustamova said: “Our innovative remote monitoring technology marks an enormous leap in hormone testing.”
“This funding will enable us to bring this revolutionary solution to the market, making hormone tracking more accessible and insightful than ever before”.
Despite being in its early stages, Level Zero has already attracted a strong pool of potential customers.
It plans to use the funds to advance its research and development, as well as in expanding its team.
While initially only focusing on business to business (B2b) clinical applications, the company is also looking to expand into consumer health and pharmaceutical markets.
Redalpine investor and board member of Level Zero Health, Philip Kneis, said: “We did it for blood pressure, and we will do it again for hormones. Continuous hormone measurement is one of the holy grails of diagnostics”.
The company has grouped a clinical advisory board which includes Harvard Medical School’s Aaron Styler, and reproductive science expert Joshua Klein.
The last firm to achieve this pre-seed funding record prior to Level Zero Health was wealth-building platform Belong.
The platform secured £2.9m in pre-seed funding last July, which at the time was the largest pre-seed round ever raised by female founders in Europe.