Fertility app maker Kindara adds thermometer

BOULDER – Already claiming to have helped more than 30,000 women get pregnant with its fertility tracking mobile app, Boulder startup Kindara Inc. on Tuesday launched an integrated thermometer that it believes will make the process even easier.

Dubbed Wink, the thermometer links wirelessly with users’ mobile devices and inputs temperatures into the app automatically. Kindara co-founder Will Sacks said the thermometer is more accurate than regular drugstore thermometers, and can also register temperature readings in about 15 seconds, adding to the convenience factor.

Sacks founded Kindara with his wife, Kati Bicknell, in 2011, and launched the free app in the spring of 2012. Among other things, the app tracks basal body temperature, a key proxy indicator of progesterone levels and ovulation. The idea is to help women better understand their own fertility and reproductive health, whether their goal is to get pregnant faster or prevent pregnancy altogether without use of conventional birth control methods like the pill.

Aside from a few experiments with subscriptions and other revenue generators, Kindara has essentially been pre-revenue until the launch of Wink. Sacks said he envisions other premium upgrades inside the app to be added in the future.

The thermometer will retail for $129, though it’s available on Kindara’s website for preorder for $79. Sacks said the preorders will be shipped in the spring, with preorder revenue covering early manufacturing costs.

Started with the founders’ own funds and with the help of friends and family, Kindara has raised a pair of funding rounds totaling a little more than $1 million so far, with investors including SOS Ventures, Vast Ventures and Drummond Road Capital. Sacks said he anticipates another larger round of funding next year.

The six-employee company is looking to add about three employees now and as many as 30 by next year if things go well, Sacks said.

The Kindara app is an idea that has caught the eye of larger companies interested in buying Kindara. But Sacks said the focus right now is on developing the product offerings and growing the business smartly.

“If we keep doing the right thing, those people will be more and more interested,” Sacks said.

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