Peripear has secured £1.2 million in an oversubscribed pre-seed round led by HERmesa, with additional participation from female-focused investors and angels, alongside non-dilutive funding from Innovate UK’s Women in Innovation grant.
Co-founded by midwife Nina Van Schaick and medtech entrepreneur Eviatar Natan, Peripear is developing a wearable device that delivers automated perineal thermotherapy during childbirth, providing hands-free warmth designed to help prevent perineal tearing.
“I spent years seeing women live with pain and injury that was too often treated as part of birth,” said Van Schaick. “I brought what I was seeing in practice, and I brought the evidence that already existed but simply wasn’t being used consistently. Peripear exists because the standard of care couldn’t possibly be the best we could do.”
While warm compresses can help prevent tearing, hands-on application is not always practical in clinical settings. Perineal trauma occurs in up to 90% of vaginal births, according to the company, contributing to persistent pain, sexual dysfunction, and urinary incontinence and costing the US healthcare system more than $2.4 billion, and leaving patients with.
To standardize use in clinical protocols, the funding will support Peripear’s first in-human efficacy study at the National University Hospital System of Singapore. The company has also applied for a NIHR-funded randomized controlled trial.
