Mira Care Co-Founder and CEO Sylvia Kang.
Sylvia Kang is a China-born former pianist, bioengineer and business manager who overcame her parents’ expectations and societal stereotypes to found Mira, the fertility device and women’s health company to solve a problem—her own.
Kang had reached her early ‘30s and wanted to start a family after years focused on eduction and building a career. She and many other women she knew found that the products on the market at the time were unreliable, not personalized and provided little information on hormonal health that would help in their fertility journey. So, she decided to solve the problem herself..
“I realized that there is a huge gap between what women need and what’s commercially available. And I'm the kind of person who wants to do something and use my knowledge to make some impact. I feel like this will be a perfect opportunity as a combination of my background in science and also in business management. So that's how the idea for Mira was born. I invented this medical device together with my technical co-founder and we started his company,” said Kang in an interview.
Founded in 2018, the Pleasanton, California-based company provides a mini health lab though its FDA and CE (The EU version of the FDA) compliant and AI-infused device and mobile health platform that provides tracking and analysis to support women in their fertility needs.
Mira is part of the now booming market in women’s health technology.The global women’s health devices market size is projected to grow from $51.01 billion in 2023 to $95.16 billion by 2030, according to Fortune Business Insights.
Other companies in the category include Inito, Mosie Baby, Oova, Eli Health, Proov, Flo Health, kegg, Modern Fertility, ClearBlue, and OvuSense to name a few.
Kang faced no small challenge in starting the company and building its own device. “I was feeling like I was doing three companies at the same time. There’s hardware and there's a bio essay, and then there is software development and all three need to work together. At the same time, you have to have a quality management system, a good facility to manufacture, inventory control and a registration process too. So, that whole process took I would say three years,” says Kang.
She bought her own 3-D printer and began creating early working prototypes to show potential investors. Then she had to educate herself about direct to consumer marketing and learned through trial an error. But finding early investors was similarly challenging.
“We were trying to raise money at that time and it was difficult to have that conversation because most of the investors are male,” says Kang. Traditional healthcare investors didn’t understand the business model and were looking for more of a B2B solution for healthcare providers. Consumer investors wanted an app with a subscription service.
She eventually found investors who provided a modest sum to help get the company off the ground, receive FDA and CE approval and started marketing the device and service. Mira has now received some $6 million in venture funding to date, according to Kang.
Today, Mira has some 100 employees and has sold over 130,000 devices which are sold through a variety of retail outlets. Its Mira AI-powered analyzer allows for quantitative hormone measurements in urine, replacing traditional blood sampling within fertility care, offering patients a more convenient and less-invasive alternative. Individuals can monitor their hormone levels directly from their homes—reducing the need for frequent clinic visits, minimising testing costs.
“At-home testing of hormone levels during fertility treatments has the potential to significantly reduce the burden of treatment for the patient. The patient can conveniently and painlessly perform the testing at home, with results immediately relayed to the provider via the app. The burden of care is also reduced for fertility clinics or the healthcare system. Overall, devices such as the Mira are proving to be very meaningful innovations by broadening access to care and improving the patient experience,’’ said Dr. Gary Nakhuda of Olive Fertility in an interview.
Growing up in China she was expected to follow her parents’ wish that she became a concert pianist and studied at the prestigious Sichuan Conservatory of Music and did become an accomplished pianist at an early age. So, it took courage and self-determination to follow her true passion for science and engineering, with her grandfather for inspiration.
“He was the first person doing biomedical engineering in China and later he became a Vice Governor for the province. So he was also very self driven,” says Kang, who at the age of 12 had to spend time on her own studying science, maths and engineering.
She left China to pursue her goals and came to the US to attend and graduate from the University of Pittsburgh with a degree in bioengineering. That was followed by a Masters in Bioengineering from Columbia University and then earning her MBA from the Cornell Graduate School of Management.
Kang then worked her way up from a marketing strategist intern to the Business Director of Corning’s Gorilla Glass division with a $100 million global P&L. But Kang always had the drive and desire to go out on her own and start a business and found her calling with the founding of Mira.
As for the future? “We have really good product market fit. And also, we have a very good team,” says Kang, enabling the company to continue its strong growth and be self-sustaining without need of additional investment.
In addition to growing Mira, she also wants to raise awareness for the need for more women’s health research and for women in STEM. “I really try to do more to help to bring more awareness to women's health as an industry or FemTech as the industry is called. It's 50% of the population and it's still called a niche market,” concludes Kang.
