Bloomlife, a Belgian-American start-up specialising in improving maternal and infant health monitoring, has announced the completion of its fundraising of 4 million US dollars. The main investors in this fundraising are Marc Benioff and Efficient Capacity, LanzaTech Ventures, The Chernin Group, Kapor Capital and Act One Ventures. This has brought Bloomlife's total funding to 6 million dollars.

For Belgian investors, it's a time for celebration. Leansquare and Meusinvest are pleased with this fundraising which will probably allow the start-up to market its first product: a portable, smart pregnancy device. This device detects contractions and produces a visible representation of them on the pregnant woman's smartphone. The 4 million dollars will also help to speed up the marketing of future developments for the device.

Bloomlife is based in San Francisco and Belgium, where the product development and clinical research takes place. The start-up works in particular with the Oost-Limburg Hospital in Genk. It was co-founded in 2014, by the Liege-born Julien Penders, who graduated from the University of Liege in Civil Engineering and Optoelectronics and from the University of Boston in Biomedical Engineering, and the American Eric Dy. The two men met at IMEC where Julien worked for 8 years.

With this innovative technology, Bloomlife enables the pregnant woman to gain a better understanding of her body and to experience a third trimester of a pregnancy with peace of mind. "Every pregnancy is unique and pregnant women are looking to reassure themselves about what they are feeling. Bloomlife gives them a second objective opinion", explained Julien Penders. This smart device is currently only available in the USA through an early access programme.