London-based women's health startup Unravel Health has raised €2.96 million (£2.5 million) to advance a device designed to measure multiple hormones using saliva samples. The funding will support its Micro Lab technology, which aims to deliver readings within minutes without conventional laboratory visits. The company is pursuing repeated hormone measurement to improve understanding of hormonal changes over time.
Investors Back a New Approach
Conduit EIS Impact Fund and Wrightwood led the financing, with Leo Capital, Embryo Ventures, Hermesa, and returning investor Zinc participating. The investment follows more than £1 million in support from Innovate UK, the Medical Research Council, SBRI, strategic angels, and Zinc. Unravel has completed an initial close exceeding £2 million and expects additional investors to join.
The financing reflects interest in addressing gaps in women's healthcare data beyond occasional clinical assessments. Eva-Maria Dimitriadis, managing partner at Conduit EIS Impact Fund, identified affordable, accurate measurement of multiple hormones over time as a major technical challenge. She also emphasized the team's scientific expertise and focus on the needs of patients and clinicians.
Inside the Micro Lab
Unravel's Micro Lab is being developed as a palm-sized reader that analyzes several hormones from a saliva sample. Its planned panel includes estradiol, a major form of estrogen, alongside three other hormones not identified in the announcement. Measuring these markers together could provide a broader picture of hormonal patterns than isolated test results.
Blood tests provide clinically useful information, but a single result may miss changes occurring across a menstrual cycle. Consumer wearables track physiological signals continuously, although they generally do not directly measure hormone concentrations. Unravel aims to bridge this gap by enabling repeated biochemical measurements outside specialist laboratories, potentially making longer-term monitoring more practical.
The company believes its approach could help patients and clinicians investigate relationships between hormonal fluctuations and symptoms. Such information may support research into menstrual health, perimenopause, and other hormone-linked conditions, although the device's clinical usefulness remains to be established. For now, its potential benefits are development goals rather than proven diagnostic outcomes.
Research Roots and Founders
Founded in 2024, Unravel Health is led by co-founders Veronika Bridgman, chief executive officer, Liza Levy, chief commercial officer, and Alexandra Oti, chief medical officer. Its biosensor technology emerged from approximately a decade of research at the University of Glasgow and is protected by three granted patents, according to the company. The system targets hormone concentrations in saliva that historically required sensitive laboratory equipment.
Bridgman has connected the company's mission to her experience managing a hormone-related condition with limited testing data. The founders hope to build longitudinal datasets showing how hormonal changes correspond with symptoms and health experiences. They also see research potential in combining repeated measurements with patient-reported information and other clinical data.
Development Plans and Future Uses
The investment will fund independent equivalency studies, development of additional biomarkers, and initial regulatory work. Unravel plans its first early-access devices for 2027 through partners in pharmacy, digital health, and clinical research. That target does not mean the product has secured authorization for routine clinical use, which will require further evaluation.
Women's hormonal health is the company's initial focus, but its longer-term ambitions extend beyond reproductive health. Unravel says the underlying technology has been used to investigate markers related to cardiovascular health and prostate cancer. Expansion into these areas would require further development, supporting clinical evidence, and relevant regulatory approvals.
Unravel Health's financing provides resources to move its research-based technology toward practical at-home testing. Its proposition is that convenient, repeated measurements could add context to the isolated results available through conventional testing. With validation and early-access deployment still ahead, the next challenge is demonstrating reliable performance in real-world settings.