A palm-sized device based on a decade of research at the University of Glasgow is aiming to track women’s fluctuating hormone data daily.
Unravel Health, now based in London, has raised £2.5 million to develop the Micro Lab, which is designed to read multiple hormones from a saliva sample at home in minutes.
The round was led by Conduit EIS Impact Fund and Wrightwood, joined by Leo Capital, Embryo Ventures, Hermesa and returning investor Zinc VC.
Hormones shift throughout the month, but a blood test captures a single day. Wearables track every day but can only estimate hormone levels. The Micro Lab is designed to sit between the two, giving real hormone readings at home, day after day, at every stage of life from puberty to perimenopause.
“People said nobody could climb Everest without oxygen, until someone did,” said Veronika Bridgman, co-founder and CEO of Unravel Health. “Reading hormones in saliva outside a lab has been our Everest.”
Bridgman suffers with Polyendocrine metabolic ovarian syndrome (PMOS) — formerly known as polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) — a common hormonal and metabolic condition.
“Fifteen years ago I built my own hormone tracker to manage PCOS, because a blood test told me almost nothing about what my body was doing,” she said. “Soon anyone will be able to bring the lab home to understand their symptoms.”
Saliva carries the hormones the body uses, but in quantities so small that only a lab could measure them. Unravel’s technology, protected by three granted patents, aims to bring that lab into the home.
Women’s health rarely comes down to one hormone, so the Micro Lab is being built to read oestradiol, the main form of oestrogen, alongside three other key hormones simultaneously.
The funding will pay for external equivalency studies, the development of additional markers and the start of the regulatory approval process.
The round takes the Micro Lab to its first early-access devices in 2027, through partners in pharmacy, digital health and clinical research. Women’s hormones are the first application.
The underlying technology has already worked on other markers, such as those for heart health and prostate cancer, and could bring many more lab tests into the home.
Eva-Maria Dimitriadis, managing partner at Conduit EIS Impact Fund, said: “Women’s hormonal health is one of the largest under-served markets in healthcare, and the bottleneck has always been data.
“Unravel is solving a hard technical problem that many are trying to address: measuring multiple hormones accurately, longitudinally, and affordably. And they are doing it via saliva, at home, aiming for lab-grade sensitivity.
“The team pairs deep science with a clear view of what women and clinicians actually need. We’re proud to lead this round and back them from a very early stage.”
Henry Engelhardt of Wrightwood said: “I invest in founders who are fixing problems that have been ignored for too long. Hormone-related conditions shape the daily lives of millions of women, yet the tools to understand them have barely changed in decades.
“Unravel’s approach could change how these conditions are diagnosed and managed, and I’m delighted to support the team.”
Angel investor Andrea Sinclair said: “Through fertility treatment, menopause and now as I focus on staying healthy as I age, I’ve had to rely on hope, optimism and the luck of whichever doctor I happened to see.
“What I wanted was real science and data. Understanding what was actually going on with my hormones would have been transformative back then, and it matters just as much now as I try to live well for longer.”
The round builds on more than £1m from Innovate UK, the Medical Research Council, SBRI, strategic angels and Zinc.