Conceivable Life Sciences announced a $50 million Series A financing round to accelerate the development and commercialization of AURA, the world's first AI-powered automated IVF laboratory platform. The funding, led by Advance Venture Partners with participation from existing investors including ARTIS Ventures, Stride, and ACME, brings the company's total funding to $70 million following a $20 million seed round that closed in December 2022.
Addressing Manual Process Limitations
For decades, IVF laboratories have relied on manual, artisanal processes that introduce tremendous variability and lead to inconsistent outcomes for infertile patients. The current IVF lifecycle represents an incredibly cumbersome and manually driven workflow that depends heavily on human experience, dexterity, and vision, often resulting in inconsistency in outcomes and variability in patient experiences.
At its core, IVF involves delicate single-cell surgery where sperm and egg are combined to create an embryo, yet this critical work is largely performed with human hands and eyes. The average cost per IVF cycle in the United States ranges between $12,000 to $25,000, with many people requiring more than one round for a successful outcome, making any opportunities to streamline or improve consistency monumentally valuable to the field.
AURA Platform Technology
Conceivable's proprietary automated IVF lab platform, AURA, applies AI-driven algorithms to robotic hardware to deliver high precision engagement across the entire IVF workflow. The platform brings robotic precision and AI algorithmic exactitude to remove variability and standardize more than 200 intricate steps, ranging from dish preparation, sperm preparation and finding the egg to actually combining the egg with the sperm and incubation thereafter.
"This funding validates our vision of transforming IVF through AI-powered robotic automation," said Alan Murray, co-founder and CEO of Conceivable. "Our platform addresses the core challenges facing fertility clinics today—unpredictable success rates, capacity constraints, and accessibility barriers. This investment allows us to accelerate our bringing this groundbreaking technology to market."
Clinical Results and Ongoing Studies
The platform has demonstrated promising clinical results, with an initial study resulting in 18 healthy babies. Conceivable is currently conducting a 100-patient pilot study, with ongoing pregnancy results described as quite positive by the company's leadership.
"Early indications from clinical KPIs are very promising and demonstrate that robotic precision and AI-driven protocols will outperform traditional manual approaches," said Dr. Alejandro Chavez-Badiola, reproductive endocrinologist, co-founder, and Chief Medical Officer of Conceivable. "We are committed to delivering consistent outcomes that fertility patients deserve."
The current study is set to complete by the end of this year, with the company planning to commercially launch the product early next year.
Market Opportunity and Industry Context
The global fertility market faces significant challenges including rising demand, with experts estimating unmet demand for IVF to be 10 times current numbers, limited clinic capacity, and cost barriers that affect accessibility. Research indicates that the global fertility market is expected to grow to nearly $87 billion by 2034, with the rate of employees using fertility benefits offered by companies expected to increase by nearly 7% by the end of the decade, and nearly 40% of large employers now offering these benefits.
"The fertility industry stands at a critical inflection point where breakthrough innovation will fundamentally expand access to care," said Alex Christ, General Partner at Advance Venture Partners. "We saw a fragmented landscape of companies building low impact, point solutions for individual IVF processes, but only Conceivable tackling the full end-to-end approach to IVF that truly pushes the industry forward."
Commercial Launch Strategy
The Series A funding will support Conceivable Life Sciences's U.S. debut next year, with plans to expand partnerships with fertility networks in 2026, marking the U.S. commercial launch of the world's first automated IVF lab. The company aims to tackle key challenges in the lab by boosting efficiency and bringing consistency to workflows, while improving success rates and reducing costs for patients.
Conceivable differentiates itself from competitors by approaching the process holistically, touching every aspect of the workflow rather than providing point solutions. The goal is to provide a comprehensive platform that integrates complex steps in one system, revolutionizing the IVF lab with technology, engineering, and biology at the core.
