Legacy Raises $1.5 Million in Funding Led by Bain Capital Ventures

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Jun 06, 2019, 09:00 ET

CAMBRIDGE, Mass., June 6, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Legacy, a male fertility startup based out of Harvard Innovation Labs, today announced $1.5 million in new funding led by Bain Capital Ventures. The funds will be used to expand Legacy's suite of male fertility offerings to include sperm analysis, improvement, and cryogenic storage.

Legacy is capitalizing on its position as the leader in the fast-growing male fertility space with its expertise in fertility, a world-class advisory board, and a background in rigorous data analytics.

To this end, Legacy has created a straightforward and affordable option for men to have their sperm tested, improved and frozen without visiting a clinic or meeting with a doctor. Clients have the Legacy kit shipped to their door before sending it back to one of Legacy's partner clinics for clinical-level analysis. Within 24 hours, every client receives a full fertility report that analyzes volume, count, concentration, motility, and morphology, as well as the option to freeze their deposit at world-class cryogenic storage facilities.

In particular, the 40 percent of couples that are not able to conceive within six months are turning to Legacy for a straightforward, affordable option for at-home male fertility testing. Daniel Madero, Legacy's Head of Partnerships notes, "It's time for us to change the outdated view that fertility is a women's issue. Today, about one in seven couples are infertile, and 30-50 percent of the time it's due to male-factor infertility. And with couples increasingly choosing to delay family planning, we're seeing a compounding negative effect on fertility, especially as men face ongoing declines in sperm quality each year they get older."

Through Harvard Innovation Labs, Legacy has brought on data scientists that have developed a recommendation engine that analyzes over 50 data points per client and provides a personalized assessment and lifestyle recommendations. But in stark contrast to health, wellness, and genetics companies today, Legacy has taken a clear stance on privacy, refusing to sell its clients' data to external parties.

Legacy's value-driven approach, focusing on privacy, quality and security has been a critical component in building trust with consumers. Khaled Kteily, CEO of Legacy, noted, "We're passionate about rebalancing the responsibilities of family planning, and this is a goal we strive towards every day. We're not here to move fast and break things, but rather, to build a company that will be the market leader in 50- or 100-years' time. Building a values-driven company is critical to building trust with our clients because we believe that in the future Legacy will be the norm."

For this reason, Legacy has taken a number of extra steps to ensure longevity for the company and its client. Each client is assigned a unique CLIENTID to ensure their anonymity, and data is encrypted end-to-end with multiple redundancies in place to ensure that the company is at the forefront of HIPAA and GDPR compliance. The company has created the 'Legacy Standard' to ensure it only works with leading providers, and is the only company to divide its' clients deposits into multiple geographic locations to protect against long-tail risks.

"Legacy was created as a direct response to the quickly growing and critical need for better male fertility options," said Yumin Choi, partner at Bain Capital Ventures. "Today the process of testing and storing sperm is exceedingly challenging for most consumers – it's tedious, expensive and inaccessible. But Legacy's technology-enabled approach allows consumers to access affordable sperm freezing services from home while also receiving personalized results within days and connections to local providers if needed."

About Legacy
Legacy helps men test, improve and freeze their sperm to solve the 50% decline in male fertility. A member of Harvard's incubator for alumni-led ventures, Legacy won TechCrunch Disrupt's Startup Battlefield competition in November 2018 and has recently been covered in the Washington Post, CNBC, Fast Company, the New York Times, and others.

About Bain Capital Ventures
Bain Capital Ventures partners with disruptive founders to accelerate their ideas to market. The firm invests from seed to growth in startups driving transformation across industries, from security and cloud infrastructure to logistics and e-commerce to finance and healthcare. The firm has helped launch and commercialize more than 240 companies, including DocuSign, Jet.com, Kiva Systems, LinkedIn, Rapid7, Rent the Runway, SendGrid, SurveyMonkey, Taleo, TellApart and Turbonomic. Bain Capital Ventures has $4.9 billion in assets under management with offices in San Francisco, New York, Boston and Palo Alto. Follow the firm via LinkedIn or Twitter.

For more information:
Sarah Steinle
Head of Marketing
[email protected]
(860) 810 3513

SOURCE Legacy