Boulder startup Kindara raises $5.3M seed round in quest to help women track fertility

BOULDER – Kindara Inc., maker of a fertility-tracking mobile app, announced Wednesday morning that the company has closed a $5.3 million funding round that will help facilitate the release of its Wink thermometer and drive further innovation.

The round included the conversion of $1.9 million in debt to equity from cash that Boulder-based Kindara had raised previously. Boston Seed Capital led the round, with SOS Ventures, Good Works Ventures, PV Ventures, MENA Venture Investments and 62 Mile Ventures also participating.

Kindara, founded by CEO Will Sacks and wife Kati Bicknell in 2011, launched its free app in 2012, helping women track, among other things, basal body temperature, which is a key proxy indicator of progesterone levels and ovulation.

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Adding to the effort to help women who want to get pregnant do so and help those who want to avoid pregnancy do so without the use of birth control, the company launched the $129 Wink thermometer last fall. The thermometer links wirelessly to users’ mobile devices and inputs temperatures directly into the Kindara app, adding convenience.

The original plan was to ship preorders of the thermometer in the spring. But in part because fundraising took longer than planned, the company changed gears and decided to wait to ship preorders until it had manufacturing in place for full-scale production. Those preorders – which tally 6,000 so far at a special rate of $79 each – will now be shipped in December.

“It made sense to do all the manufacturing at once and get the line ready not just for preorders but also high volume production,” Sacks said. “As a company, we’re trying to send tens of thousands of units every two months starting next year.”

In addition to finalizing manufacturing plans, part of the funding round will be used to help set up distribution. While the company expects most of its sales to come online, it’s also in the process of vetting resellers like drugstores and medical practitioners.

Kindara officials are also planning to continue developing more features for their platform. Those include not only advanced features, coaching and advice through the app but also new hardware and making the app available in more languages. Sacks said the company has four more hardware products in the pipeline.

“There’s all kinds of different value adds we can add to the platform,” Sacks said.

Just with downloads of the app and the ramp-up to Wink, the company has been growing. Kindara moved from its office at 17^th and Walnut streets two weeks ago to a 3,200-square-foot space at 2560 28^th St. Sacks said the company has 10 employees now and he expects that number to double by the end of next year.

Correction: Due to a typographical error, the original version of this story stated Kindara had sold $6,000 in preorders instead of 6,000 units.