Sunfish, a new startup founded by the former director of one of the world’s oldest surrogacy and egg donors, has raised $4 million to develop financial aid tools for hopeful parents.
The round was led by Walkabout Ventures, which includes Hannah Gray VC and her Fiat Ventures, coming just under a year after the Santa Monica-based startup was founded. This support is designed to help Sunfish expand its offerings, helping families find affordable options in the course of assisted reproductive medicine, including egg freezing, embryo storage, in vitro fertilization, egg donation services, and surrogacy. helps.
Her CEO and founder, Angela Rastegar, first noticed a lack of assisted reproductive support while working at her surrogacy agency Circle. “There aren’t many resources available to help the average American understand how to budget, how to plan a loan, what loan size fits their budget, where to get discounts, and even how they think about saving,” she says. It’s the cost of getting a family loan in town,” she said.
Sunfish, a new startup founded by the former director of one of the world’s oldest surrogacy and egg donors, has raised $4 million to develop financial aid tools for hopeful parents.
The round was led by Walkabout Ventures, which includes Hannah Gray VC and her Fiat Ventures, coming just under a year after the Santa Monica-based startup was founded. This support is designed to help Sunfish expand its offerings, helping families find affordable options in the course of assisted reproductive medicine, including egg freezing, embryo storage, in vitro fertilization, egg donation services, and surrogacy. helps.
Her CEO and founder, Angela Rastegar, first noticed a lack of assisted reproductive support while working at her surrogacy agency Circle. “There aren’t many resources available to help the average American understand how to budget, how to plan a loan, what loan size fits their budget, where to get discounts, and even how they think about saving,” she says. It’s the cost of getting a family loan in town,” she said.
Fundamentally, many factors affect the cost of assisted reproductive technology. B. How many children do families want compared to the resources they already have from insurance companies and employers? “Normally, you need a sperm-egg and a uterus to conceive a baby.
If you’re a heterosexual couple who has all three of those things, this IVF process is less of an egg donor.” Having to work with a surrogate mother is much more expensive if you’re a single parent by choice, or if you’re a same-sex couple and don’t have all of these factors,” Rasteger said. Said. Costs can range from $20,000 to $200,000 for her, she explains. Notably, Sunfish does not lend itself but instead helps budding families connect with loan providers.
Her previous company, Origin Finance, provided and managed homebuilding loans directly to the surrogacy agency she worked for. Origin, which she filed for bankruptcy in January, has become the answer to the same problem area, but ventures with a broader vision in her space.
Today, Sunfish helps facilitate loans to health care providers, rather than those looking to take out risky, high-interest personal loans. Banks may be open to offering credit, but Sunfish helps people better imagine what that credit process might look like.
“It’s very different from someone who goes out and builds their facility and has a set of criteria that only allows them to approve a group of borrowers,” Rasteger said. As we delve into this space and the fertility industry grows, we wanted to offer our partners the most comprehensive solution…some flexibility in one of the early-stage outfits.
To date, Sunfish has received more than $20 million in loan applications from hundreds of applicants but has not disclosed how much capital it was ultimately able to release for competitive reasons. bottom. However, the company has assisted hundreds of customers in 32 states, cohorts that have received lines of credit ranging from $12,000 to $100,000.
Startups certainly have a lot to do. There are many competitors in the space, including Gaia, which raised its $20 million Series A round last year to help the couple fund his IVF treatment. . Future Family, where he offers a 60-month loan to fund fertility treatments, also raised $25 million in Series B last year.
Rastegar may have to catch up with these VC-backed peers, but Sunfish’s differentiation is clear, she said.
Her goal is to support parents throughout their journey, from conception through early childhood to raising their children with long-term financial well-being in mind. Step 1 ties parents to credit, while steps 2 and 3 might look like savings accounts, investment games, and so on.
