Hi everyone!
I’m Afton Vechery, the co-founder and CEO of Modern Fertility.
We started Modern Fertility in 2017 to make personalized fertility information and support more accessible to people with ovaries everywhere. In May of this year, we were acquired by digital health company Ro.
Prior to Modern Fertility, I was in healthcare private equity, ran the strategic operations of various health tech startups, and oversaw the consumer tools division at 23andMe.
During my time in healthcare private equity, I led diligence for investing in a whole network of IVF clinics and labs. I spent time in IVF clinics in New York City talking to countless smart, wonderful women who had never been told that fertility declined with age, or that IVF wouldn’t work for every single person. It was this emotional aspect of infertility that really stuck with me.
Fast forward to when I was at 23andMe, I realized that I was waiting until later in life to start my own family. I tried to get my fertility hormones tested, and to make a long story very very short — the tests were way too hard to track down and way, way too expensive, but ultimately the results were incredibly empowering. The experience led to the idea for Modern Fertility.
Modern Fertility started by taking the same exact laboratory tests that were done in an infertility clinic, previously only accessible once you’ve been struggling to conceive for up to a year, and making them accessible to women proactively, at a fraction of the cost, and in an easy-to-access format. We’ve since expanded to offer our Ovulation Test, Pregnancy Test, cycle tracking app, Prenatal Multi, active online community, and other digital fertility tracking tools. This is all about owning what impacts our bodies and futures, so we can build the lives we want on our own terms.
I’m on the National Leadership Council of the Society for Science and the Public (I could go on and on about the International Science Fair) and I graduated from Wake Forest University with degrees in neuroscience and business entrepreneurship.
Ask me anything about my founder journey, fertility and the future of women’s health, scaling a startup, or anything else!