Femtech Trendwatch: Surrogacy on the Rise

Spotlight: Surrogacy

A couple of days ago Nodal, a company on a mission to reinvent the surrogacy experience, announced a $4.7M seed round. On Femtech Insider we often speak about ART (assisted reproductive technologies), yet haven’t covered the surrogacy space in more detail so far. It’s time to change that! 

Generally speaking it can be difficult to understand the size of this space. Gestational surrogacy has been researched in multiple qualitative studies, yet quantitative aspects of the practice have been somewhat understudied. A 2016 study on trends and outcomes of gestational surrogacy, however, suggests that more than 2% of 2 million ART cycles performed during 1999-2013 in the U.S. used a gestational carrier.

Definitive numbers (also due too fertility tourism) may be hard to come by, one thing is for sure though: Gestational surrogacy is on the rise and recent investments in this space support both access and growth.

🤔 What is surrogacy?

If a woman is unable to carry a pregnancy to term, gestational surrogacy may be the best option. Also called a surrogate, a gestational carrier is a woman who carries and delivers a child for a couple or individual.

Surrogate mothers are impregnated through the use of in vitro fertilization (IVF). In this process, doctors create an embryo by fertilizing eggs from the intended mother or an egg donor with sperm from the intended father or a sperm donor. Because the gestational carrier doesn’t provide the egg, she is not genetically related to the child.

🤔 Who may benefit from gestational surrogacy?

A carrier may be recommended for the following patients: