Aster Raises $2.4M For Maternal Healthcare Platform In Pre-Seed Round Led By Black VCs

Aster has announced its $2.4 million pre-seed round to build a platform to enable women’s health providers to deliver materially better care.

Aster

The United States is the most dangerous and expensive high-income country for childbirth, especially for Black and Indigenous women.

Black women face a nine times higher risk of maternal death than their white counterparts, regardless of wealth.

The Aster app was created to help women keep track of their pregnancy, communicate with a care team on the app, and book appointments and remote monitoring.

FiFi Kara co-founded the app after witnessing her family’s distress as her nephew was brought into the world through an emergency CAT 1 C-Section.

The app provides continuous at-home monitoring for mothers pre and post-natal, 24/6 support, and accessible clinical guidance.

Aster works with providers, such as midwives and OB/GYN doctors, to provide care, and if you don’t have an existing provider, Aster can connect you with one in their network.

There is also a selection of educational content and weekly midwife-led group sessions.

A Black VC-Led Pre-Seed Round

Kara announced today its $2.4 million pre-seed, led by Cake Ventures and Cornerstone VC and participated in by Zeal Capital Partners, Octopus Ventures, Sterling Road, Blueprint, and Everywhere Ventures.

Select founders and senior operators from Vitable Health, Komodo Health, Meta, and Google.

“With the highest maternal mortality rate among high-income countries, it is unacceptable that pregnancy for American women can still feel like a dangerous undertaking, and the data shows that the situation is even worse for Black women,” said Monique Woodard, General Partner of Cake Ventures.

“The Aster team are the right founders to tackle this important problem through technology and personal experience.”