Salesforce's Benioff invests in smart pregnancy wearable startup

By Alyssa Huntley Aug 17, 2016 8:10am

Bloomlife, a digital women’s health company, has closed on a $4 million seed funding round, bringing Bloomlife’s total funding to $6 million. Bloomlife will use the new funding toward commercialization efforts for a smart pregnancy wearable called Belli that measures contractions and displays them visually on a smartphone.

The round was led by Marc Benioff and Efficient Capacity, LanzaTech Ventures, MeusInvest, Hanmi IT, The Chernin Group, Kapor Capital and Act One Ventures.

Marc Benioff, founder of Salesforce, is no stranger to women’s issues in the tech world. He’s famously advocated for women in the tech workplace and seems to have set his eyes on helping women’s health.

Bloomlife has developed a sensor that can measure specific health parameters for a mother and child from conception through birth. Bloomlife hopes this tech--which earned honors at the Extreme Tech Challenge on Sir Richard Branson’s Necker Island--can help boost its mission to use crowdsourced data to enhance prenatal care through the understanding of pregnancy and its complications.

"Our company's mission resonated with the [Extreme Tech Challenge] judges," said Eric Dy, CEO and co-founder, in the announcement. "They understood how our technology could help this underserved market."

Bloomlife has ongoing partnerships with the University of California, San Francisco’s Preterm Birth Initiative and research teams at Stanford.

Belli can help expectant mothers have more peace of mind during the third trimester. Until it is launched, the wearable is only available through an Early Access Program on the Bloomlife website.

"Every pregnancy is unique and expectant moms are looking for validation of what they are feeling,” Dy explained in the announcement. “Bloomlife provides an objective second opinion."

- here's the announcement

startups Wearables women Bloomlife