The start-up using sweat for women's health monitoring: Persperity Health raises $1m in pre-seed funding
Sweat contains a wealth of information about hormonal health
Persperity Health, a new company spun out of California Institute of California (Caltech), has announced it has raised $1 million in pre-seed funding to speed up the development of its groundbreaking sweat-sensing technology, set to transform women's health by providing real-time, non-invasive hormonal insights.
The round was led by Freeflow Ventures with participation from Caltech, Wilson Hill Ventures, Heritage Group, and ATMA Capital, this investment shows the confidence in the potential of Persperity's platform to create a new way to manage personalised health monitoring.
Non-invasive real-time hormone monitoring
The Persperity platform is set to become a way to track ovulation, support fertility treatments and improve menopause care. It enables real-time hormone monitoring through device-based sweat analysis. This will allow women access to personalised health data in a way that may not have been possible before and will change how women and their healthcare providers can manage fertility and menopause care.
The advanced technology has been exclusively licensed from Caltech and developed by Dr. Wei Gao and Dr. Cui Ye.
Dr. Wei Gao, co-founder and inventor of the core technology at Persperity Health said:
"If you look at what's commercially available, devices can track heartbeat and steps, but they aren't capable of studying your health at a molecular level."
"By analyzing sweat, our device provides detailed information about what's happening inside your body.
“Once you realize the potential of sweat for health monitoring, it's hard to go back to conventional methods."
What sweat tells us about women’s health
Sweat contains a wealth of information about hormonal health, including critical hormones like estradiol, progesterone, and luteinizing hormone (LH), which are vital to women's reproductive health and overall well-being.
Persperity's technology uses a non-invasive process called iontophoresis to induce sweat on demand, allowing women to monitor their hormone levels anytime, anywhere— importantly without strenuous exercise or invasive procedures.
As well as the $1m in pre-seed funding, Persperity Health was also involved in Caltech’s bid for a share in the $110m Sprint for Women’s Health - and was awarded a prestigious $3 million ARPA-H Spark Award. Spearheaded by Dr. Wei Gao, the project was one of only 23 awardees selected from over 1,700 global applicants to advance a wearable sweat-sensing system for chronic pain assessment, especially benefiting women.
Dr. Pauline M. Maki, a renowned expert in women's cognitive health and menopause and a co-investigator on the grant, emphasized the project's significance, stating:
"This innovative technology has the potential to transform women's health research by enabling, for the first time, the non-invasive collection of biological markers in sweat, including estrogen — a crucial factor in numerous health conditions that disproportionately affect women, such as migraine."
Dr. Heather Lukas, co-founder and Chief Scientific Officer at Persperity Health, highlighted the broader implications:
"We're not just creating another wearable device; we're unlocking a new dimension of personalized health monitoring. By making the invisible visible, we're empowering women to understand their bodies like never before. This is more than a technological advancement — it's a revolution in women's health."
The sweat ahead
With the infusion of new capital, Persperity Health will now accelerate product development, pursue strategic partnerships, and navigate the regulatory approval process. The company's long-term vision includes expanding its platform to analyze additional biomarkers, with potential applications in mental health, stress management, and early detection of other women's health issues.