Innovation

Jack Fertility developed a solution to keep sperm cells alive and stable for long periods of time. This was crucial, as most of them die after roughly one hour due to inadequate temperature and lack of nutrients. The tests took place in their Oxford-based lab, as their goal was to have lab-certified tests. Specifically, this contributes to increase overall good health and well-being, by making fertility tests much more available.

Subsequently, this helps reduce the gender gap and responsibility for women specifically in less economically developed countries.

Inspiration

She has a strong business and finance oriented background, having worked in many different environments, including the Biotech industry. According to her, the idea behind Jack Fertility started during the COVID pandemic, when her colleague and dear friend Nick was trying to have a baby. However, during the pandemic there were no fertility services available for men, let alone tests that could be taken at home. Often, apparent shortcomings in society lead to creation: this is exactly the case of Jack Fertility.

Through our talk with Lily, we learned many details regarding male fertility, which pose a unique challenge to the start-up. In fact, male fertility is characterized by the cultural stigma, which firstly makes men very self conscious. Additionally, the current fertility tests for men are a rather awkward experience, particularly so in less advanced countries. All this prevents them from seeking help and receiving sperm health checks on a regular basis. Ultimately, the result is that women are forced to undertake these tests. This sheds light on one fundamental issue: gender inequality: in fact Lily states that she really wants to try and alleviate women from this burden.

Before starting the process of creating the actual company, Lily and Nick spent six months planning and gathering market insights. They also interviewed over seventy people, which were mainly potential customers, in order to gather information regarding opportunities and threats for the project. Lily was therefore determined to take on the challenge in order to reach equality between genders when it came to fertility testing.

Overall impact

During their work, Lily and her team found some interesting insights on society: there is a significant gender gap regarding reproductive knowledge. As a matter of fact, many men do not know that sperm health can actually change over time and that constant checks are vital. In fact, sperm completely regenerates after 90 days. Another fact they found out is that the LGBTQ+ community is very concerned about their reproductive health.

Jack Fertility’s battle for a more inclusive reproductive health system did not stop at testing. In fact, after having completed the test, each customer receives their results directly on the phone, in a private and discreet manner. The results include recommendations regarding the next steps; their goal is essentially to humanize testing.

We were very curious to know more about Lily’s achievements, therefore we asked her which was her proudest professional moment. To this she answered, telling us a brief story: one morning she woke up, opened linkedin to find that Rishi Sunak had tagged Jack Fertility in a post. In addition, she has received the Young Innovator award from the UK government.

Business benefit

We then asked Lily which is the best way to balance both profit and social wealth. To this question she replied with a smile, stating that revenue is a crucial aspect: in fact each dollar that comes in can be reinvested in research and development. All together, what Lily found on her journey was lots of goodwill and many curious people, which will help Jack Fertility potentially become a mass-market company.

Social and environmental benefit

In the future, Lily’s dream is to scale up production, in order to really find the perfect product-market fit. After that, she would certainly like to become the NHS’ standard, however the road is still long.

Interview

Lily Elsner, CEO