Gynaia raises € 2.3 million in seed round co-led by Heran Partners and Gemma Frisius Fund

Gynaia, a pioneering women’s health startup, announced the close of its $2.5m/EUR 2.3m seed financing round to transform women’s health diagnostics. 

Gynaia uniquely integrates continuous learning, training & certification, quality control, and AI-based clinical decision support for medical imaging into a unified solution to advance Women’s Health standard of care. 

Mission

Building on the foundation of the IOTA (International Ovarian Tumor Analysis) consortium, Gynaia translates decades of research and global collaboration into practical tools that help raise the level of clinician expertise, shorten waiting lists, accelerate access to accurate diagnoses, reduce unnecessary surgeries, and expand high-quality care into primary care settings. 

Diagnostic urgency

Hundreds of thousands of women are diagnosed with gynecological cancers each year. Ovarian and uterine cancers continue to result in preventable deaths due to late diagnosis, inefficient triage, and delayed surgical intervention. Women face long wait times, limited access to specialists, and inconsistent diagnostic quality.

For example, early-stage ovarian cancer has a five-year survival rate of over 90% when detected early, but when detected late, survival drops to around 15%. Other women’s health conditions, such as endometrial pathologies, are also poorly triaged. In early pregnancy, ectopic pregnancies can lead to severe complications or death if not identified in time.

Solution

Gynaia addresses these challenges by enabling earlier, more accurate diagnoses through AI-assisted ultrasound decision support, expert training and certification, continuous learning, and standardized quality control. This results in earlier detection, more fertility-sparing surgeries, fewer unnecessary procedures, and ultimately, lives saved. 

Moreover, by standardizing these tools and making them broadly available to gynecologists, sonographers, radiologists, and clinicians beyond specialized centers, Gynaia helps democratize access to expert-level ultrasound diagnostics.

Gynaia partners with leading ultrasound equipment manufacturers, national health systems, and professional societies to improve routine diagnostics and accelerate research across women’s health, with an initial focus on gynecologic oncology, early pregnancy, obstetrics, and fertility.

Investor consortium

Gynaia is a joint spin-off between KU Leuven University and the University Hospitals of Leuven (UZ Leuven) in Belgium. Headquartered in Boston, MA, it was founded by Professor Dirk Timmerman (Head of Gynecology and Obstetrics at UZ Leuven), Professor Tom Bourne (Chair in Gynecology at Imperial College London and visiting professor at KU Leuven), Belgian health tech entrepreneur Herman Verrelst, and CEO Steven Van Vooren. 

The $.2.5m/EUR 2.3m seed round was co-led by the Gemma Frisius Fund, the KU Leuven seed capital fund that has been supporting start-ups for over 25 years, and Heran Partners: a specialist venture capital investor, committed to creating transformative impact within the life sciences and healthcare industry. 

The funding allows Gynaia to launch its operations, advancing product development, market entry, and regulatory approvals.

Milestones to Date

• Formation of a deeply experienced team combining expertise in clinical community support, continuous learning, SaaS/SaMD, ML/AI, regulatory affairs, clinical research, and business strategy.
• Establishment of a regulatory-compliant Quality Management System (QMS), with submissions underway, including the IOTA ADNEX validated risk model for ovarian masses.
• Deployment of a regulatory-grade clinical decision support app, with pilots underway in the UK and Europe.
• Active engagement with NHS Cancer Alliances & trusts, sonography networks, and KOLs for real-world implementation and co-development.