Health Capital Helsinki
  • Home
  • Why Helsinki Metropolitan
  • About us
  • News
  • Events
  • Opportunities
  • Careers
  • Contact
  • Search
  • Menu Menu
© Unsplash
Nov 2, 2021

Presenting Health Incubator Helsinki batch 2 companies:

Knewborn fights infertility with computer algorithms

Fertility treatments often lack predictability, leading to uncertainty and frustration. Through the power of machine learning, however, it is possible to improve the overall effectiveness of fertility treatments. New Finnish startup Knewborn wants to accomplish all this – and more. The company is one of the promising startups selected for the Health Incubator Helsinki program that started in the spring of 2021.

Knewborn’s Co-founder Sara Veleva is an experienced physician who is skilled in Research, Medical Education, Gynecology, Epidemiology, and Statistical Data Analysis. Hailing from Bulgaria, she came to study in Finland almost 20 years ago.

“When I first got the invitation from the University of Oulu, my friends joked it was located so far up north that there had to be penguins,” she looks back now, laughing.

Her award-winning, 2008 doctoral thesis focused on infertility, providing a solid future base for a startup focused on infertility issues.

Sara Veleva Knewborn
Knewborn

Knewborn brings predictability and improved results to fertility treatments through the power of machine learning.

-Sara Veleva, Co-founder, Knewborn

Award-winning thesis led to idea development

At the time, even Time Magazine interviewed her, further convincing Veleva that there’s something worth developing here.

“There’s a huge amount of uncertainty that comes with fertility treatments: they are, by nature, heavy, difficult and expensive treatments with no guarantees.”

Then an idea emerged: what if you could decrease that “fog of uncertainty” between doctors and patients by improving communication – and improving vitro fertilization treatments, as well?

“We experimented with machine learning tools to see if this could be done. Proper predictive models were key in this work,” Veleva says, calling the startup a “rapid vessel” for getting support for those people in need.

Overlap in competences from three countries

Veleva put together a team with AI expertise and started developing the product.

“We are utilizing a vast collaboration network to make this happen,” Veleva says, adding that she’s not your typical businesswoman, but instead, a researcher with a knack for taking different things and putting them together.

We are looking to take on our first client in 2022.

Founded in 2020, Knewborn is packed with people from quite different professional backgrounds.

“There is also overlap in competences which is good for team cohesion,” she says.

So far, specialists from three different countries have been involved in the development phase, as well as various infertility clinics.

“We are looking to take on our first client in 2022.”

Health Incubator Helsinki as support

Veleva says that reducing stress and anxiety for hopeful parents is a worthy goal – but the road ahead is not easy.

“Even with AI, this is a huge challenge for all of us, but we’re confident we can make good things happen.”

Participating in the Health Incubator Helsinki – as one of Batch II companies – has given Veleva confidence to keep going forward on her chosen path.

“The program has a solid, positive structure that is giving us great support, also peer support through the pandemic,” she says, admitting that she has missed face-to-face encounters.

“Covid has really hit communication between people, but we’ve tried to adjust. It feels like things are improving now.”

Knewborn logo
Fast Facts

Name: Knewborn

Product: Improving the predictability of fertility treatments via machine learning

Founded: 2020

Team size: 10

Target customer/market: Fertility clinics, couples with infertility issues

Check out all the companies in the Health Incubator Helsinki program

Text: Sami J. Anteroinen

Share this entry
  • Share on Facebook
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on LinkedIn

More case stories

Health Capital Helsinki

Woman in a pink shirt testing VR glassesN2 Albiino / Helsinki Partners

Virtual reality to improve nursing education in Finland

Feb 16, 2022
Read more
https://healthcapitalhelsinki.fi/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/Woman-in-pink-wearing-VR-glasses2-w1200.jpg 1125 1500 taruvirtanen https://healthcapitalhelsinki.fi/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/hch_logo_horizontal_black-300x165-1.png taruvirtanen2022-02-16 13:44:182022-02-16 15:28:11Virtual reality to improve nursing education in Finland
Two people with sunglasses leaning against a building wallJussi Hellsten / Helsinki Marketing

Trialwell connects people and researchers for a clinical trial win-win

Nov 10, 2021
Read more
https://healthcapitalhelsinki.fi/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/20140317_1658_L1001371-Edit_4062.jpg 1180 2000 Saana Lehtinen https://healthcapitalhelsinki.fi/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/hch_logo_horizontal_black-300x165-1.png Saana Lehtinen2021-11-10 07:25:032021-11-08 11:13:59Trialwell connects people and researchers for a clinical trial win-win
DataSolu

DataSolu speeds up preclinical drug development and boosts preventive care

Oct 26, 2021
Read more
https://healthcapitalhelsinki.fi/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/Kaivo-res150-scaled.jpg 1151 2560 Saana Lehtinen https://healthcapitalhelsinki.fi/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/hch_logo_horizontal_black-300x165-1.png Saana Lehtinen2021-10-26 08:25:352021-10-25 14:02:43DataSolu speeds up preclinical drug development and boosts preventive care
News

Health Capital Helsinki

Helsinki Partners
Kasarmikatu 36
00130 HELSINKI
FINLAND

Privacy notice

Sign up to our newsletter

Subscribe

Follow us

  • twitter
  • linkedin
Health Capital Helsinki

We use cookies to give you the best experience on our website.

Find out more and set your preferences settings.

Powered by  GDPR Cookie Compliance
How we use cookies

We may request cookies to be set on your device. We use cookies to let us know when you visit our websites, how you interact with us, to enrich your user experience, and to customize your relationship with our website.

Click on the different category headings to find out more. You can also change some of your preferences. Note that blocking some types of cookies may impact your experience on our websites and the services we are able to offer.

Essential website cookies

These cookies are strictly necessary to provide you with services available through our website and to use some of its features.

Because these cookies are necessary to deliver the website as intended, refusing them will have impact how our site functions. You can always block or delete cookies by changing your browser settings and force blocking all cookies on this website. But this will prompt you to accept or refuse cookies every time you revisit our site.

We fully respect if you want to refuse cookies but to avoid asking you again and again kindly allow us to store a cookie for that. You are free to opt out any time or opt in for other cookies to get a better experience. If you refuse cookies we will remove all set cookies in our domain.

If you disable this cookie, we will not be able to save your preferences. This means that every time you visit this website you will need to enable or disable cookies again.

Third party cookies

This website uses Google Analytics to collect anonymous information such as the number of visitors to the site, and the most popular pages. Keeping this cookie enabled helps us to improve our website.

We also use Twitter's and LinkedIn's cookies to help us improve our content and reach.

Please enable essential website cookies first so that we can save your preferences!

Privacy notice

You can read about how we use your data on our Privacy notice page.

Privacy notice

Scroll to top