Founders Everywhere: Laura McDonald and Dr. Christy Lane
Laura McDonald and Dr. Christy Lane are the co-founders of Flora, the first individually-owned fertility benefits solution.
Welcome to Founders Everywhere, where we highlight the incredible people behind the companies we’ve backed at Everywhere Ventures, a global pre-seed fund supported by a community of 500 founders and operators.
Fertility and women’s reproductive rights are a hot topic right now with increasing global attention. The World Health Organization (WHO) declared fertility a major health issue affecting one in six people, with new mechanisms of funding needed. For those who need fertility care, it can be a stressful, emotional, and expensive journey. Most health insurance plans do not fully cover fertility treatments (if at all) and many people are forced to pay out-of-pocket. Flora is addressing that gap.
Flora will be the first individually-owned fertility insurance product, giving people control over their reproductive health and offering coverage beyond most traditional group plans. It will be available through trusted channel partners, such as health apps and affinity groups in a B2B2C model. The product also fits with employer voluntary and flex benefits, ensuring personalized health coverage and plan portability. In doing so, Flora is empowering the next generation of parents by giving individuals autonomy and security around their future ability to build a family.
Co-founders Laura McDonald and Dr.Christy Lane are both seasoned entrepreneurs residing in Canada and launching the product across North America. Laura brings extensive experience from the finance and insurance sectors. She also founded and exited a digital media company focused on women and wealth, which became the largest in Canada in that space. Christy is a global leader at the intersection of digital health, AI, and insurtech, with decades of experience in analytics and women’s health. She is the founder of the Stanford Wearable Health Lab, and was the founder and CEO of Vivametrica, an insurtech she saw through a successful exit. Their co-founder Somil Jain (based in the U.S.) joined later, contributing his expertise as a chief actuary for major digital insurance companies. Flora is a team that’s passionate about insurance and helping the next generation have security around their future fertility. They recently announced their $1.5 million pre-seed round.
What’s Flora’s mission?
Our mission is to create community and capital to fund the underserved market of fertility and women's reproductive health. We believe funding for fertility treatment shouldn’t be determined solely by your employer or your state. By establishing an individually-owned fertility insurance product, we aim to empower people with the resources they need for reproductive autonomy.
What inspired you to create Flora?
Laura: My background is in finance and insurance, where I’ve spent many years bringing new products to market. I previously founded a digital media company focused on women and wealth, which became the largest in Canada in that space. While I was fortunate to have four children without fertility problems, witnessing a close family member struggle with treatments opened my eyes to the significant challenges and affordability issues people face. Given my background, I began thinking about how insurance, which is essentially a community of people funding one another's risk, could address this issue.
Christy: Two of my three babies were born through fertility treatment. This deep understanding of the problem we are solving from both the emotional and financial sides, is what led me to co-found Flora. I bring expertise in both healthcare and insurance, with decades of studying women’s health and risk assessment. Through my experience building the Stanford Wearable Health Lab and my previous company Vivametrica, I’ve learned how to launch innovative risk models and impactful products. I am fiercely passionate about women’s health and supporting women and girls in STEM, and strive to build products that will make life better for my two daughters and my son.
How does Flora inspire “customer love”?
Our initial target customers are women aged 20 to 34 who want security about their future ability to build a family. We’ve done research with one of the largest menstrual tracking apps, and we found that 50% of their North American users are concerned about their future fertility, even if they don't have children yet. Many are willing to pay out of pocket for this kind of coverage, which shows how important this is to them. We have a waitlist for Flora prior to our upcoming launch and have been blown away by the engagement from our future policyholders.
What’s on the horizon for Flora?
We plan to launch our first product in the U.S. by early 2025, with Canada following afterward. In terms of coverage, we're looking at offering up to $50,000 of lifetime coverage for fertility treatment, which far exceeds most group-based products on the market today. We want our premiums to be affordable, as low at $15 per month, up to about $70. We are passionate about Flora's potential to not only be a good business model, but also have a significant social impact. We want to use our capital to make monumental shifts in the way we look at reproductive health as a whole and to ensure underserved markets and issues get funded.
Fun facts:
Laura: I used to dabble in acting in my 20s and even had a film go to the Sundance Film Festival. Learning pages of scripts in hours and going into stressful auditions requires more skill and grit than you can imagine. It prepared me for being a founder, as I learned to communicate more effectively and deal with high stress situations. I think every founder would benefit from taking an acting class, because it will help them pitch and refine their story, and put themselves out there.
Christy: My very first research study was the first study ever to use wearable devices to understand health risks for women who were on bed rest in hospitals with high risk pregnancies. I developed my grit as an entrepreneur early, planting over 1 million trees in northern Canada - if you can be a tree planter you can do any job! Playing and coaching rugby for 25 years has also provided me with a lot of insight into teamwork and creating community.
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