A new startup offering hormone injection support to women going through egg-freezing or in vitro fertilization launched last week.
Lushi, named after a breed of chicken that lays a limited number of blue eggs, offers fertility experts via in-home or telehealth visits for intimate injection support. The service is launching initially in New York, Los Angeles, Austin, Chicago and Boston. Lushi’s virtual platform, which includes instructional videos and remote monitoring, is available nationally. Its app is voice-activated and uses generative AI to answer user questions. Each Lushi user gets a personalized 12-week nutrition and lifestyle plan to maximize their fertility potential.
Lushi takes a holistic approach to fertility, recommending things like avoiding microplastics and other potential environmental toxins. This, the executive team argues, can help reduce the number of egg-freezing cycles a woman has to go through, which is not only painful but expensive. Up to a quarter of reproductive-age women in the U.S. face fertility challenges and struggle to find treatment.
Jessica Schaefer, Lushi’s CEO and founder, went through the egg-freezing process herself. She was sent home from one of New York’s fertility clinics with medications to mix and inject on her own. She was confused and overwhelmed by the process. “I left the experience just feeling like, wow, I can’t believe it’s like this,” Schaefer told Fierce Healthcare. “It was just really chaotic.”
This experience is not uncommon among women, particularly anyone living alone, she added. The fertility care process can strain relationships and cause psychological distress. On top of that, egg freezing can cost thousands of dollars—and women often need to go through multiple rounds to be successful. Some industry research has found that 86% of patients indicate injections are the most acute pain point of their fertility journey.
Initially, Lushi pursued venture capital and private equity investments, but hit walls either with male investors who did not appreciate the market opportunity or predatory offers that requested too much power over the company, Schaefer said. Instead, she turned to entrepreneurs and individuals who had frozen their eggs and understood the problems that Lushi aims to solve. As of this month, the company has raised at least $5 million in funding. Investors include serial entrepreneurs such as Ariel Kaye, founder and CEO of Parachute, and Justin Dibbs, co-founder of Allied Gold Corp Limited.
Lushi accepts HSA and certain insurance plans that cover fertility treatments. For instance, Carrot Fertility provides lifetime maximum benefits as a specific dollar amount, which can be applied toward Lushi’s services. The company is actively working with employers and exploring partnerships with payers. A basic membership, which grants a user a 12-week personalized plan, starts at $69.99 a month. Lushi’s core offerings are priced at three tiers for various levels of injection support. They range from $299 to $5,000. A one-time in-person visit is $250 and a one-time virtual visit ranges from $150 to $250.
The startup plans to expand in 2025 with fertility wellness pop-ups in key markets featuring demos and consults. Additionally, it hopes to open what it calls injection bars in New York and Los Angeles to provide injections on site, yoga sessions designed to boost egg quality, and mental health support. Lushi also hopes to expand its offerings to support women with polycystic ovary syndrome, endometriosis and chronic pelvic pain.
Lushi Chief Medical Officer Mana Baskovic, M.D., is an OB/GYN and surgeon specializing in minimally invasive robotic surgery. She led a private practice in California until earlier this year. Infertility was on the rise, as was demand for fertility support. Yet she noticed how many women struggled.
“It was one story after story after story,” Baskovic told Fierce Healthcare. “The system is broken.” In her view, fee-for-service does not incentivize the best outcomes. “The patients are all treated as a billing code,” she said. “It’s just not a mindset I can adopt.”
Intimate injection support is not part of any fertility offerings today at a national scale, according to Baskovic. Lushi’s philosophy is to understand the whole person and optimize their outcomes in as few cycles as possible, unlike the mainstream way of doing things. “It’s really mind-boggling that it actually does not exist,” she said. “[Society’s] answer is more IVF cycles. It does not exactly seem like a long-term solution to all of this.”