i3 - November/December 2016 - 56

Policy

By Bronwyn Flores

FAC E S O F I N N OVAT I O N

Bloomlife CEO Eric Dy

ast year Eric Dy's
women's health
startup Bloomlife
pitched to a room full
of top tech executives and
You participated in the XTC
investors at the Extreme Tech
semi-finals at CES 2016. Tell us
Challenge (XTC) semi-finals
about your trajectory since then.
at CES 2016. Since then, his
The XTC helped accelerate our growth.
company has celebrated early
We were a semi-finalist in Las Vegas,
successes (spoiler: Dy's company and later went to Necker Island and
won the final round on Richard won the finals. Having Richard Branson
endorse your company definitely makes
Branson's Necker Island) and
a difference. We're fortunate we got
is launching its first consumerconnected with several high profile
ready product at CES 2017.
investors and ended up closing another
CTA's newest startup member
round of funding following the XTC
is bringing innovative data and
event that helped to accelerate our
solutions to a key area of
product roadmap including ramping
up beta testing. We've had hundreds
women's health: pregnancy.
What is Bloomlife?
We are a women's health company
working in the digital health space. We
combine pregnancy specific wearables
with data analytics to reassure moms
and provide doctors with better information to improve birth outcomes. Our
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of women use the product during their
pregnancy. The feedback is awesome
and it's clear we're addressing an
overlooked group. Women have been
organically sending letters and photos
of their babies thanking us for taking
some of the guesswork out of their pregnancy journey.

Why did you join CTA?
We realize the value of the network and
exposure that tech startups get through
CTA events and through other member
companies and the opportunities they
provide in terms of partnership and visibility. Given the success we've seen by
attending one event, it made sense for
us to become a CTA member.

Where do you see the future of
consumer health tech?
One of our beliefs is that general,
all-purpose devices are not going to
address most people's needs. We believe
there will be a continued trend towards
more clinically validated and FDA
cleared devices. This space is going to
evolve with devices designed towards
market segments that have a specific
condition they want to track or manage,
and then having devices designed
specifically to do that.

What's next for Bloomlife?
In January we're launching our
first product, a clinically validated
wearable that automatically measures
and tracks contractions to reassure and
empower expecting couples with better
information to make more confident
decisions. It supports both iOS and
Android. We will continue working
closely with the University of
California, San Francisco and the
Preterm Birth Initiative. Our goal is to
make a product that benefits all moms
not just those that can afford it. Our
clinical research aims to prove specific
medical benefits to secure reimbursement from payers. We have more
features to be released next year and
are working hard to complete the
clinical validation on them. We're
excited to attend CES 2017 to see other
new baby tech products are there,
since things are evolving really fast.
It's an exciting time for us.
n
I T I S I N N O VAT I O N

TOP: LAURIE WILSON

L

mission is to develop new technologies
to advance the state of prenatal care and
improve the health of moms and babies.
We started in January 2014 while my
cofounder and I were working at a
company (imec) developing advanced
wearable solutions for consumer and
medical markets. We were inspired
by his pregnant wife and when we
started looking into the healthcare side
of things, we were surprised at how
little innovation there's been in this
space. As a consequence, pregnancy
complications are on the rise. We felt
technology we developed in the past
could be repurposed to advance the
state of prenatal care. Our goal was to
develop a pregnancy specific wearable
that combined medical accuracy with a
simple consumer experience to reassure
expectant couples and answer key
questions. We also wanted to provide
doctors with information to help them
better track and manage the health of
expecting moms.
https://bloomlife.com/ http://extremetechchallenge.com/ http://extremetechchallenge.com/
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