ivf
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Mylene Yao
Mylene Yao is co-founder, director, and CEO of Univfy, a Los Altos-based healthcare AI company that builds personalized IVF success prediction models. A board-certified OB/GYN trained at the University of Toronto, McGill, and Harvard, she was a Stanford faculty member running an NIH-funded embryo development lab before spinning her prediction research out with statistician Wing H. Wong. Univfy's models tell patients their individual odds of having a baby with IVF, and pair the prediction with financing so more people can actually pursue treatment.
Lauren Berson Sugarman
Lauren Berson Sugarman is the founder and CEO of Conceive, a 24/7 fertility and pregnancy care platform she launched in 2021 after her own three-year journey to motherhood. An executive-turned-entrepreneur, she previously held senior roles at Andreessen Horowitz, WeightWatchers, Google, and Citi, and runs Sugarman Ventures as an angel investor with 15+ company investments.
Angela Rastegar
Angela Rastegar is the co-founder and CEO of Sunfish, a Los Angeles fertility-finance company that treats the cost of building a family as a problem worth engineering around. After a 2016 egg-freezing attempt left her facing a confusing, expensive and isolating bill with no insurance to lean on, she went to work inside the fertility industry, watched patients drain 401(k)s and sell engagement rings, and then built a platform of loans, grants, guidance and a money-back IVF Success Program priced off a patient's own biodata. A two-time founder with a Stanford biology degree and a Stanford MBA, she raised a $10M Series A in early 2025 and put a refund guarantee at the center of an industry that has long charged for attempts rather than outcomes.
Evan Sussman
Evan Sussman is the co-founder and CEO of Granata Bio, a Boston-based biopharma company expanding access to fertility care by in-licensing IVF medications proven abroad and bringing them through U.S. clinical development and commercialization. A former fertility business unit head at EMD Serono, he built Granata to be revenue-positive early through a fee-for-service model, then raised a $14M Series A led by GV (Google Ventures), extended it, acquired ovarian-aging biotech Oviva Therapeutics, and struck a strategic investment and co-development deal with Gedeon Richter.
Noor Siddiqui
Noor Siddiqui is the founder and CEO of Orchid Health, a San Francisco-based biotech startup offering whole-genome sequencing for IVF embryos, screening for 1,200+ genetic variants. Motivated by watching her mother lose her sight to retinitis pigmentosa, she dropped out of high school at 17 to become one of the youngest Thiel Fellows, later returned to earn dual CS degrees at Stanford, and then built Orchid with $16.5M in funding from investors including 23andMe founder Anne Wojcicki and Coinbase's Brian Armstrong. She is also the host of the podcast 'Conceivable with Noor.'
Paxton Maeder-York
Paxton Maeder-York is the founder of Alife Health, an AI platform for IVF clinics that has raised $31.5M and raised the standard for data-driven fertility care. A Harvard-trained biomedical engineer and MBA, he previously helped build surgical robotics at Auris Health (acquired by J&J for $3.4B) and worked in product at Google X. In 2020, driven in part by the fact that his younger brother is an IVF baby, he founded Alife to apply machine learning to embryo selection, hormone dosing, and lab scheduling. By 2024 the company had launched five products, earned recognition from Fast Company and the World Economic Forum, and achieved a leadership transition - Paxton stepping into a board role as Melissa Teran took the CEO seat.